What Wolf?
by Alex Mcpherson
Summary: It's a question that's asked by many, but in the simple words of, Gwen, Who is She? What does she mean by Aliens? Where does she come from? The Daleks call her the Abomination. But 1 Time Lord called her Friend. S2 Spoilers, AU. Chapter 6 edited!
1. Parting of the Ways

**Short Summary:** AU - Rose promised that she would spend forever with the Doctor and the TARDIS. What if she could fulfill half of that promise, but not the half as implied in 'Journey's End'?

**Summary:**Who is the Bad Wolf? At first, the Doctor thought it was just a message to Rose, along their travels through Time and Space. But the Bad Wolf is much more than that.

**Story Origins:** Lady Clark-Weasley's story 'A Different World'. Had a good long few PM's between us discussing this story. She deserves a mention here. Anyway, I read her story and thought 'Brilliant, but hang on... the sudden change to her being a time lady and getting to travel between places/etc and the various explanations for why much of what she did was so like the Doctor was a bit, well for me, undeveloped. It's still a good story, and she pulled a rose version of Human Nature and The Family of Blood rather well, which is the main bit I'm thinking of right now, but other ideas I have behind the change, I just thought I could try to develop them a bit more, maybe expand the explanation for the change.

The main point for me was, 'Human or Time-Lady, why didn't her brain get fried?' and the use of the argument that, 'She could manipulate to such a degree that she brought Jack back to life!' doesn't hold water - The Doctor could have done that to remove the whole 'every cell in my body is dying' factor, and that would be the one use Time Lords would have let him get away with, I guess. And there aren't Time Lords around to stop him, so why didn't he do that if Rose did? Rose didn't realise she had turned Jack into the Face of Boe!

So I came up with a new concept to explain it away, don't worry this will be shown eventually. And the change for her into a Time Lady comes slowly, but 'just happens' to finish after 'Doomsday' (Author prerogative,) where she's watched the Doctor fall towards the void only to be caught by her Mum. The explanation for why not Pete is when I get through Season 2.

After that, this would be a fair bit different from 'A Different World' since she most emphatically is not the Doctor. Such as, she doesn't accidentally give famous quotes to Shakespeare. (He really is a bit more of a genius than that episode implied!) Also, when she does the hologram message to the Doctor, he really is surprised at it, and is led to believe someone else is with her to make sure the TARDIS doesn't get trashed by the supernova, and Rose doesn't correct him on that. Jackie and Pete aren't with him too. Although Mickey and Jake are. Best get cracking - a few changes to Satan Pit still to write.

**Authors Note:** Yes yes I know, another story started. Can't help it. after my muse tried to get me to rewrite my hp/sg-1 crossover, it kinda stopped after i made a continuity error and couldn't get back to writing properly the original version.

And yes, I did add - with a little change - the Children in Need Special onto the end. The first change from canon that is noticable is when the Doctor sends the vortex back into the TARDIS. There's a smaller change earlier on, and the description certainly delves into how different it potentially is from canon, although not directly contradictory to fully established things (the Doctor 'saying so' excluded since he did say that the Daleks were wiped out, but we know that was not so!) So I highly recommend reading through fully.

**Authors note 2: finished up to DOOMSDAY. Will be posting it all together today. Chapter 1 - Parting of the Ways, Chapter 2 - The Christmas Invasion. Chapter 3 deals with New Earth through to Rise of the Cybermen, Chapter 4 Age of steel to Satan Pit. Chapter 5 is the Army of Ghosts/Doomsday. yes I know i took the intro narrative there, but chapter 6 would explain why i didn't change that to show the Doctor rather than Rose 'dropping into the other universe'. Doomsday bit ends just after the Doc is 'rescued' by Jackie and taken to Pete's world. Chapter 6 is going to be a seperate story - Yes i know it seems all cliffhanger at the end there. who's the familiar hand belong too? could it be, (gasp) that Doc's sycorax-chopped hand regenerated on it's own? Well that idea's quite 'out there' :P but no.  
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Chapter 1**

_**Parting of the Ways**_

**Game-Station 5**

"Now you tell me, god of all Daleks…" The Doctor began, running up to the display of the 'god' Dalek. "Cuz there's one thing I never worked out. The words, 'Bad Wolf'. Spread across time and space, drawing me in. How'd you manage that?"

The Dalek paused for a split second, and the Doctor thought that he heard surprise in the Daleks voice, but the very words he got in reply, drove any wonder at that out of his thoughts. "I Did Nothing."

"Oh come on, there's no secrets now, your worship." He said, thinking that the Dalek was deflecting.

"They are not part of my design." The doctor blanched, hearing the truth in his voice. "This is, the truth of god."

--

**London**

Rose ignored her mum talk about the chip shop, her thoughts thousands of years in the future. A question, one she immediately forgot was about, brought her out of it enough to say something.

"Two _hundred thousand_ years in the future, he's dying, and there's nothin' I can do about it."

"Well, like you said," Jackie began, and tried to reassure, "Well, Two hundred thousand years, it's _way_ off."

"But it's not. It's now. That fight is happening right now. And he's fighting for _us_. The whole planet, and… I'm just sitting here and eating chips." She barely took in their replies, and she knew she was replying but in her mind, she was numb from pain, the pain over the strong possibility of loosing him.

"Why, cuz you're better than us?" Mickey asked.

"No… I didn't mean that…"

As she thought, her mouth moved and speech formed without her thinking about it, she just knew it had to be said, "But it was… it was a better life, an… a… I don't mean, all the travelin'. Seeing aliens and spaceships and things – that don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life." She looked at Mickey. "You know, he showed you too. You don't just give up. You don't just let things happen, you make a stand, you say no…" The pain of loosing him too much to bear, like a double-throb she recognised from hearing his two hearts work in tandem before, set her off. She couldn't just sit there and verbally defend him and his way of life. "You have the guts to do what's right, when everyone else just runs away, and I just CAN'T!" She stood and left, ran. She didn't know where she was going nor did she care, unless it somehow led her back to him.

She didn't know why, but she eventually stopped at park of sorts, an asphalt park covered in graffiti, She almost gave in to the drumming compulsion to look at the graffiti and read it, but Mickey approached, his own running footsteps distracting her slightly from the compulsion.

"You can't spend the rest of your life thinking about the Doctor." He told her. She barely listened.

"How do I forget him?" _'How could I?'_ She asked herself silently.

"You gotta start living your own life." She felt the compulsion take over.

As he continued, She stood up.

_'Bad Wolf'_ She thought, that thought drowning out completely the throbbing.

Suddenly, she knew _exactly_ what she should do. What that compulsion had been trying to tell her. To run, don't look back, and get back to him.

As she babbled, Mickey stopped her to ask, "If it's a message, what's it saying?" She didn't stop to tell him, she just rushed out as she ran, ran like she hadn't before. "It's telling me I can get back! Least I could do is help him escape!"

--

She sighed and leaned against the console of the TARDIS. She knew Mickey was on his own way, probably in his stupid little Mini, she preferred the VW.

She didn't let the tears fall, the tears not just of sorrow but happiness, knowing she had a way back. Just inches away, beneath the panels, She thought she could sense what the Doctor called the Heart of the TARDIS drum and throb in anticipation. Images flickered in and out of her mind, all the times Bad Wolf showed up in her life. She realised that they hadn't been restricted to her travels with the doctor and this one point in time without him… Pieces fell into place and she just knew somehow that the Bad wolf had lead her to the Doctor.

She was jolted out of it when Mickey arrived.

Unnoticed, a locket she had worn when she was a child, one that she brought with her, one she had never been able to open, fell out of her pocket as she turned, and it fell into a gap in the panel. She thought she felt a sudden massive throb in the heart, but merely passed it off as the TARDIS being eager to return to the Doctor.

--

She smiled, she could hear the Heart much clearer with each passing moment, each pull on the panel from the tow truck. Her own throbbed in excitement. A single, idle thought passed through the back of her mind. She thought her heart had doubled in pace, thudding like horses running. Dud-dud. Dud-dud.

And then, it was open, the chain was released and pulled out of the TARDIS completely.

She stepped up to it, and felt the rush of energies.

For months, she felt home was not with her Mum, not with Mickey. But with him, and that is where she immediately told the TARDIS to go.

_'Take us home.'_

And she felt eyes upon her, eyes that felt older than anything she thought something could be and yet those eyes were kind, free of malice.

It replied to her request. She barely heard the doors shut, and as the tell-tale sounds of the TARDIS time-travelling began, the yellow strands of light she knew to be the Heart leapt out, at her eyes. She welcomed it.

And as the TARDIS relatively speaking, slowly went forward in time – after all it takes time to time travel, she heard singing, a slow melodic song of sadness. A song she thought she had heard before, a sad song she had heard when Gwyneth had somehow began to read her past, and also, from what she said, the future.

For what seemed liked hours but was 2 minutes and 30 seconds, the TARDIS returned, locked onto a point in space and time, taken directly from Rose' mind.

Upon arriving, the TARDIS stabilising back into the time-stream, She felt the Heart of the TARDIS leap into her. She knew exactly what she had to do.

--

Gamestation

She looked at the doors, and moved with the winds of time to the door, and with less than a thought, they opened. She saw quite a few Daleks gathered around the room, with the big bad one still on the screen.

And The Doctor. To see him, alive, made her and the TARDIS' hearts soar. She took a step through the time-stream, to stand right in front of him without a visible step in between.

Just the wisp of what she knew to be the time-vortex swirling around her.

And she saw the shock, awe, joy… and horror in his mind. She could sense them all.

"What have you done?!" He asked.

She could see, what he had said in their memories, and in his mind she knew he thought he was lying. And she knew, her words would be misconstrued, however true they were.

"I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me."

And she was right, as he replied, "You looked into the time-vortex, rose, no-ones meant to see that."

She held back replying, knowing split-seconds before the words came that the 'god of the Daleks' was going to speak.

"This is the ABOMINATION?!" It asked.

The one directly in front of it screamed, "EXTERMINATE!"

She could feel the fear from the Doctor, and only paid the lightest attention to the beam.

With nary a thought and only a glance, she stopped it and sent it back. She looked back at the Doctor, and felt his confusion, hear his thoughts. The TARDIS was connected to the Doctor, and she held it's heart in her head.

_'That's not possible!'_

"I am the Bad Wolf." She said, knowing it to be true. She could see the truth. "I create myself."

She looked up at the sign of the 'Bad Wolf Corporation', and said, "I take the words. I scatter them…" She continued, her mind splitting focus between telling him this, doing this, and keeping an eye on the time-stream for any unwanted events, "… in time and space. A message to lead myself here."

She knew his pleas before they touched his lips, "Rose, you've got to stop this, you've got to stop this now. You've got the entire vortex running through your head, you're gonna burn."

She ignored his words, she could feel the truth, see the truth, and she had always known it, somehow. Instead, she replied, "I want you safe. My Doctor, Protected from the False God."

As she said this, she felt his mix of emotions, confusion almost winning out over his fear that his words rang true. She knew, what she was going to do would confuse him the most.

"You cannot hurt me. I am the immortal." Spoke the Dalek on the screen.

Rage flooded through her and the heart of the TARDIS. While her face barely showed it, her voice, its odd echo quality even more pronounced was filled with it. "You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space." With that statement, she felt the disbelief from the Doctor, overwhelmed by the added confusion and worry. As she spoke she heard his thought, _'It should have killed her,'_ "Every single atom of your existence and I divide them."

She lost focus from the Doctor, instead she saw, as she said she did, every single atom that made up the Daleks and their ships, where they had been, where they could have been, where they could have gone if what she was about to do didn't happen, as well as where they were presently.

And she did exactly what she said. The heart leapt at her command, the vortex giving shape and form to her command, and she saw as the electrons holding those atoms together cease to function, inert. One by one, so fast that if she wasn't holding the heart in her head, she wouldn't have been able to observe it.

One Dalek after another in the room. "Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies."

She spared just enough focus to see what the Doctors response to all this was. She felt a torrent of them, whirling around his head. Shock at what she had taken in, the horror of what he thinks would and should have already happened to her, the awe in that she could have held it for the 2 minutes he had seen her carry it for, and the more minutes she must have to make the TARDIS bring her back. The pride he felt for her sticking to her principles – not leaving him behind. And something else.

He knew what she was going to try with her new found power. The thought was loud and clear.

For him, she said, "The Time War ends."

Throughout the station, Daleks were reduced to dust, as the 'Dalek god' shouted, "I will not die. I CAN NOT DIE!"

And then she did something that completely shocked the Doctor into a stupor. He expected her to burn from the attempt. Daleks in the room were one thing – and he did not know about the other Daleks throughout the station – but an entire vessel and Daleks inside them, so many more atoms.

She turned her focus on the fleet. Her mind processing each bond between atoms at a rate that few ever could even with the heart or vortex in their head.

A fleet spread around the entire orbit of Earth.

Barely 2 seconds after the last of the atoms' bonds broke down, rending the Daleks wiped out, the Doctor didn't so much recover from his shock as push it aside for the moment.

With the tiniest hint of awe, he began, "Rose, you've done it, now stop. Just let go."

She knew, this connection would not last much longer. "How can I let go of this?" She asked, she was not done. She focused on someone she had felt die, someone who died before she even arrived. She knew what must be done, what must not not happen. It would bring him pain, but eventually he would accept her gift, she knew this as well as she knew the Doctor. She seeded him with a lot – a ridiculous amount – of life. In his soul and body. She knew that the Doctor somehow sensed it, so she added, "I bring life."

"But this is wrong… you can't control life and death…" His thought was clear, it was not the ability to give and take that he feared, but what having it would do to her, a power that came from the vortex, a power that time-lords believed no one could ever physically handle.

She looked at him, no longer seeing through the vortex but through her eyes, and spoke, "But I can. The sun, and the moon. The day, and night." She paused barely a second, experiencing lifetimes of pain the TARDIS felt at feeling and seeing death. And she knew, this he would misconstrue also. "But why do they hurt?"

"That power's going to kill you and it's my fault." He claimed.

He was wrong. She created her path after she was on it, not he. "I can see everything." She began, and his shock doubled. "All that is. All that was. All that ever could be."

He finally stood, realising the breadth of what she had taken in, even if he still wouldn't believe the bit about the heart of the TARDIS.

"That's what I see all the time." He told her. She knew, this was because of his connection to the heart, not because of a time-lords natural ability. She could see other Time Lords, in the Time War, who didn't have this ability, having not had their own TARDIS time-ships. Something he was never aware of, his view into the time-stream limited as seeing through someone else's eyes, noticing less than the TARDIS.

"Doesn't it drive you mad?" He asked.

She closed her eyes, and spoke, "So much pain…"

The Doctor took a step to her, and as she saw what he was going to do, she knew he would take only what he believed was there…

"Come here, I think you need the Doctor."

With that, she gave in to the kiss, and as they pulled apart, she felt the vortex being pulled out of her and into him. The raw energy of it, uncontrolled, he wouldn't see what she had seen.

They parted, and she watched the wisps of the vortex gather around his eyes.

Weak from the effort, no longer supported by the vortex, she relaxed and he held her, slowly lowering her to the floor. When he let go, he then stood, and she watched the vortex flow back into the TARDIS, dazed and confused. Her vision swam with more than what she was seeing there and then.

When it was done, he leaned down and looked at her, and she looked back. She sensed his shock at her being awake, although she did not register it consciously.

"Doctor…" She began, and he just shook his head, not wanting her to say anything. She could sense the change in him. That what he did was different to what she had done, and what that meant for him, but her confusion made her unsure if what she was seeing and sensing was real or something else, a memory.

He helped her up and into the TARDIS, where she sat on the couch and closed her eyes. He began to take somewhere, and in the back of her mind she thought, _'Mum.'_ But he was having trouble.

Slowly, her head cleared of the excess information the vortex had fed her, and looked over at him, to find her vision less flooded with other events. He was looking at her in sadness.

She stood and looked around, trying to process where in her own time-line she was, her experience as the Bad Wolf having overridden her sense of time and perception just enough to do that.

"What Happened?"

The Doctor looked at her, and asked, "Don't you remember?"

She had to think it, _'Oh, thank you. That's helpful.'_

"There was this singing," She answered hesitantly, a distant echo suddenly reverberating in her head.

"That's right, I sang a song and the Daleks ran away.

_'Daleks, right, plural, and leather-clad Doctor. He looks sad. Right… damnit.'_

As she spoke, she pretended not to notice his sad looks at his hands, nor the slight glow from them, "I was back with my Mum and Mickey… and then I was at home, I mean, here in the TARDIS…"

She saw his sad smile turn into a full blown one, knowing he caught her meaning; that she thought of the TARDIS as home.

"And I saw 'Bad Wolf' there… I knew I had to get back… and… the rest is just a blur." She looked at him and gave him a sardonic look, "But you weren't singing, sunshine, so don't start with that."

He looked at her confused by that. While he was glad that she hadn't died from absorbing all that power, he was confused that she even survived it. Her memory shouldn't have remained - all that power should have been too much for her mind to process and recall. Although she did say it was a blur, that was far more than what should have stayed.

A tickling sensation brought his mind back to the matter at hand however.

"Rose Tyler." He began. "I was going to take you to so many places… so many times. Barcelona – the planet, Barcelona, not the city Barcelona. You'd love it. Fantastic place. They've got dogs with no noses." He laughed causing her to look at him worried. "Imagine, telling that joke many times a day and it's still funny." She didn't need to say anything, as he continued, "And maybe we will go, maybe I will, maybe you will, but not like this."

"You're not making sense." She had to say, it would have been true for her had she not seen it coming, but as she said it, she recalled some of what she saw which put his comments into context.

"I might never make sense again. I might have two heads, or no head, imagine me with no head. And don't say that's an improvement."

He convulsed, in physical pain. She shot forward, least she could do was ease the transition. "What's…" She began.

"I absorbed the time vortex, and no one's meant to do that." He looked at her with a sharp sad look, "Every cell in my body is dying."

She saw in his eyes, or rather, didn't see in his eyes… the question, a question she asked of herself, _'Then why am I still alive?'_…

She didn't think he'd die proper though, because as though an echo of something just gone, but rather what was to come, flashed through her mind, leaving a golden glow in the middle of her eyes for a second, and she knew what that flash was about. Other flashes, with other people going into and coming out of the same flash flew through her mind, but she pushed those images away.

"What…" She began, paused, and asked, "Can't you do something?" She didn't know why, she knew the answer as it was, but only because of the extent to which she took in part of the TARDIS.

"Yeah, I'm doing it now…" He answered, direct but somewhat distantly, "Time Lords have this little trick… sort of like a way of cheating death. Except, it means I'm gonna change. I'm not gonna see you again, not like this… not with this daft old face."

She smiled slightly, and half-clarified, half-asked, "Change how you look?"

He looked at her, and she knew he thought she caught on a little too quick. "Yeah. Not just that… it's…" He stopped mid word from another convulsion. "Before I go…"

"Don't…"

"Rose, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely Fantastic…"

She smiled at him unsure, but replied, "Doctor… You were too you know…"

He grinned. "You know me so we-AAH!" He screamed in agony at the last, clutching his arms to his belly and almost dropping to his knees, but his scream and loss of mobility was only for a second, before he shot to his feet, his body exploding in a strange manner. Rose watched fascinated as all evidence of the Doctor – her Doctor – was erased as another took his place.

In the time for the regeneration to take place, Rose wondered why he hadn't thought about how she obviously survived using the vortex, when he could barely hold it for a few seconds without… this.

As she watched the rapid transformation, she felt an odd apprehension and excitement, as well as worry, and she was sure it wasn't her own, as the feelings felt… detached from her.

Once it finished, there in the Doctor's leather jacket, black shirt and black jeans, stood a kind of… lanky skinny guy. He had hair and looked decades younger.

He looked at her with a slight smile. "Hello ther- oh… ummm" He paused, closed his mouth, seemed to run his tongue around his teeth and swallowed or something. After a moment, he stopped and muttered, "New teeth, that's weird… so where was I… oh that's right… Barcelona." He smiled, a large toothy smile.

Okay, she knew this would happen, but the experience of it first-hand, rather than recalling what she had seen through the time vortex, was something else.

Almost ignorant of her reaction, or rather the lack thereof, he began working the controls. "Right… how about, 6pm, Tuesday, October… 5 thousand and 6… On the way to Barcelona."

He stepped away from the controls, and looked at her. "Now then, what do I look like?"

She gave him a full body check with her eyes, and tentatively asked, "Doctor?"

"Wait… no, nono, no nono don't tell me… let's see…" He began a physical self-check, "2 legs, 2 hands… slight weakness-"

"Doctor?" She asked, bemused at his antics. He looked at her slight smile, and she inserted, "You're not…"

"Not what?"

"Bald."

"… Oh…" His hands went up to his head, and he ran his fingers through it. "Hair! Not bald any more… oh hey, big hair- SIDEBURNS! I've got Sideburns! And really bad skin… ah well that can be fixed the old-fashioned way. Little bit thinner, that's… weird…" He slapped his belly and gave it a little shake, as if to should flab about.

She snorted.

"What?"

"A 'little' bit thinner?" She asked, slight emphasis on the 'little'.

"Yeah… wait, what are you implying?"

"Nothing." Rose answered quickly. Too quickly, as he gave her a suspicious stare for a second, before his face contorted, surprised.

"I've… got a mole… between my shoulder blades… I can feel it… Love the mole. Go on then, Tell me. What do you think?"

She looked him over, and still quite shyly and tentatively asked, "Doctor?"

He seemed to understand, although, she mused, that he had probably read her reaction a bit differently from what she had meant by that simple question in his name, but close enough. "Yeah, It's me. Changed appearance, like you guessed… good guess at that too. Rather quick on the mark today aren't you."

"I saw him - you… well him I guess…sort of explode… and… then you were there."

He slowly stepped forward. She reached out with her hand so he extended his, and she grabbed. "It's still you though, right? I mean… your voice is different…" With a grin, she finished, "You don't sound like a northerner no more."

He smiled, and explained, "Yeah, see certain things I could influence - not control outright, I mean, mostly it's miss than hit, but if the influence is right, I could get one or two details. For instance, the accent, I guess I sort of imprinted on yours. Not quite so pronounced but yeah."

She smiled at the implication. "It is you, him… er… right?"

He stepped closer, just outside of her personal space. "Remember the first thing I ever said to you? Trapped in that cellar. I took your hand… like you're holding it now… and I said… 'Run.' Surrounded by Shop Window dummies… oh so long ago."

"It was only a year…" She replied, a bit less tentative. "I mean, a year for me okay… long time, but you? You're what, 901?"

He smiled slightly.

She had to ask, "Hold on, when is your birthday?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows, and pondered, "You know, All I know is a general age for me, it could be a week before I realize 'I'm actually 850, 875, 900 years old' and all that."

She sighed sadly at him and asked, "Well, with all your knowledge, couldn't you make a… a wristwatch or something that helps you track your own personal time-line or… or something?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows, and as he let go of her hand, his stomach ached a bit. "Hmm, slight… anyway. Sure, yeah… fine."

He stepped over towards the controls, and Rose asked, "So how does this… cheat of yours… work?"

He looked over at her, and replied, "Regeneration. Well, I'm not sure myself. Supposedly, no Time Lord or Lady should have been able to control their appearance, but when they were around…" He looked away sadly, before he perked back up, "I knew this one Time Lady. One time she regenerated she didn't actually change her appearance, and I have a vague idea how that should have worked, but well… anyway, another time, during the 18 hour regeneration cycle, since that's how long it lasts… she actually triggered several changes, it's weird, she had full control of her appearance, went through a dozen or so before she settled on one look."

"But you can't…" Rose prodded him to continue.

"No, well, lets say, under a very specific set of circumstances, I were to regenerate but liked whatever body I was in, I could actually stop it from going beyond 'regenerating' my body cells, before the appearance change. 'Bout the only thing that can influence my overall look is… well… actually, I don't have a clue. Brilliant eh? I'm a genius and I don't know."

"So you can't change back?" She asked, wistful.

He completely stopped his jiggery pokery on the console, and stepped towards her. "Do you want me to?"

"Er… not sure really."

"Oh. Er… no, sorry. Do you want to leave?"

Rose sighed. "I'm… "

"Okay, Earth it is. Sorry Barcelona…" And off the Doctor went, hyperactive but sad all the same. "Right… lets see… I know, 24th December, call it a Christmas present."

Rose sighed at him, "I'm not sure I want to leave. Do you want me to leave?"

"Honestly? Not in a million years." He mumbled as he looked at the monitor and did some more jiggery pokery.

She smiled at that, knowing he hadn't said that to her on purpose, sort of slipping out. "Doctor?"

"It's up to you, back to home, to your mum, it's all waiting for you. Fish and chips sausage and mash beans on toast-No, Christmas… Turkey. Although, having met your mother, nut loaf would be more appropriate…"

Rose couldn't help the laugh.

"Was that a laugh?" The Doctor asked, unsure of what exactly was going on with her in response to his regeneration.

"Yeah… you're right. Nut loaf is very Mum."

"Well… if you're not sure you want to stay but not sure if you want to leave… we can make this a stopover or something… Especially since that, this regeneration feels a bit weird to me, I'll need a fair bit of time to adjust to the body." At that, she noticed how his face was slowly turning pale.

"Doctor, you all right?"

"I'd love to say, perfectly fine… but…" At this he clutched his chest and doubled over in pain. He looked up and a golden wisp of… something… came out of his mouth.

"What's that?"

"The change is going a bit… wrong…" He doubled over again, and as he looked around, he saw something on the console. "Haven't used this one in years…" he muttered.

Rose watched as the Doctor switched between calmly worried over his change and absolutely barmy, sending the TARDIS through the vortex faster and faster, ensuring that the landing on Earth wouldn't be quite so… nice… as the last ones.

"… Well… crash landing. Hold on tight…"

"Doctor…" She began, about to chide him rather loudly, but a shake stopped her, and she had to grip even tighter on the handrail to stay steady.

"Here we go… Christmas Eve…"

-


	2. The Christmas Invasion

**Chapter 2  
**

"**The Christmas Invasion"**

_**London**_

Rose had barely picked herself up from the landing when she saw the TARDIS door swing shut. With a grumble, she hurried out just in time to see him proclaim to her Mum and Mickey, "Merry Christmas," And promptly fall, unconscious.

"Damn it Doctor." She grumbled as she went to his side.

"Who is he, where's the Doctor?" Mickey asked.

"That's him. That's the Doctor." She replied, and added before her Mum could get a word in, "Help me get him back to our flat, yeah?"

He nodded, and together, she and Mickey half carried him over to their block of flats. On the way, Mickey asked, "What happened?"

By the time that they arrived at her mum's flat - Rose didn't really consider it home any more - she had finished the explanation for what had happened when she took the TARDIS. Because of the time difference - it had been barely an hour since Rose had seen her mum and Mickey while for they, it had been several months - it was kind of weird for them all.

After she checked his hearts were beating (and telling her mum off for innuendo) she went into the kitchen for a brew.

"So how can he go about changing his face? Is that a different face or is he a different person?"

Rose sighed as she clicked the kettle on. "Tea, coffee?"

"Coffee please lav, now don't change the subject."

"You know he's an alien right?" Jackie nodded. "Well, he's what's called a Time Lord. I only know bits and pieces, since he's quite tight-lipped about it."

"Why?"

"Something bad happened to his race, he's the last of them. Anyway, Time Lords have this trick, this way of cheating death. From what I learned back last year on Clive's website, there had been several other Doctors, but considering this... I don't think this is the first time he's... changed his face."

"What do you mean?"

"He can regenerate, but there's a catch, his entire body changes, every cell. And he has no control over it. Just before we landed, he said it was going a bit wrong. From that, and the other 'Doctors', well... I know he's 901 years old."

"That old eh?"

Rose nodded.

"Didn't figure you going for much older men..." Jackie joked.

"Oi. I could say the same for you, you near enough hit on him several times now."

Jackie chuckled lightly as Rose finished the brews, the kettle having clicked off. She poured 3 cups - coffee for her mum, and tea for herself and the Doctor. She vaguely recalled Gwyneth Cooper, from Cardiff, having said that tea, 2 sugars was how he liked it.

"Oh all right, no more age cracks."

Rose beamed at her, but a thought ran through her head. "Big question is... where did you get men's pyjamas?"

"Howard's been staying over."

"What, Howard from the market?"

Rose barely listened to her mum explain how it started a month ago, when she heard a familiar voice. "Is that... Harriet Jones?" She said as she went to the telly.

After the news about it and some space probe satellite called Guinevere One nearing Mars, she turned away and took the cup of tea to the Doctor's bedside, in case he woke up soon.

A knock on the door distracted her though, and so she didn't see another golden wisp of energy come from the Doctor, nor hear his low, very low mumbling about needing a cup of tea.

Upon answering the door, she saw Mickey enter, holding his laptop.

Jackie had followed her, and greeted him. "Hey Mickey."

"Hey, hows' he doing?" He asked as he entered.

Rose replied, "Still unconscious, where've you been? After I got him, in you just disappeared."

Mickey smiled slightly, and replied, "Getting you both your Christmas presents."

She just raised an eyebrow, since she didn't see him holding anything other than his laptop, so he added, "I put them in the TARDIS. Don't worry, I made sure the door was shut properly. Felt some kind of prod just before I left."

Rose smiled slightly at the comment. "That was probably the TARDIS thanking you for being so sweet."

Mickey nodded with that faint smile that he always wore ever since Rose had begun travelling with the Doctor and saw whenever she returned.

Jackie spoke up, "I'm just going out, Bev made me promise to ring her about the arrangements for Christmas, and I think with You Know Who in there, they'll have to be changed. She'll drive me barmy with sulking..." Jackie muttered as she left, ignoring both their 'cya's.

Mickey started, "I was going to ask you if you wanted to go Christmas shopping, but I remembered that I got some things you might like to see."

She followed him to the living room, where he opened up his laptop and brought up some web pages he had saved on it.

She gasped at the pictures. "Where'd you get those? He's only just- oh... right... time traveller."

Mickey grinned, and then showed her another page, one showing a large picture of Rose and The Doctor As He Is somewhere.

"Where's that?"

"Like I'd tell you?"

She looked at him, then realised, "Oh, if you tell me it'd be like those... ontological paradoxes."

Mickey shrugged, and added, "May or may not. This photo may have been taken because future-you remember seeing this now, or... it may have been taken and you only realised what photo it was after the fact. Latter not being the paradox though. Not literal of that ontological paradox I mean."

Rose chuckled, "Look at you, getting into all this milarky."

"Nah, I'm into the timey wimey stuff myself."

"Go on, what else could you show me? I mean, without creating the bad sort of paradoxes?"

He smiled, and brought up a document - looked like a personnel file, with the label "U.N.I.T."

She raised her eyebrows as she saw the picture, the rank and the 'Name' of her doctor when she met him, 'General' in the rank and 'Doctor - 9th' under name.

"So this is the 9th time he's regenerated?" She pondered.

"10th." Mickey incorrectly corrected.

"No, 9th. Born as the 1st, 1st regeneration into the 2nd, so on, 9th regeneration into the 10th..."

Mickey looked sheepish.

"How many files are there?"

Mickey answered, "Only got about 3, the first recorded one - his chronology not U.N.I.T.s, is his 3rd incarnation. Did you know he was exiled to Earth at one time? Although his record shows him only as an advisor."

"Really? So U.N.I.T. treat his different... incarnations as completely separate but related people?"

Mickey nodded. "Probably would confuse them otherwise, and let slip things to earlier versions of him."

"Point."

--

Jackie frowned as she returned from Bevs', there were people dressed as Santa following her.

As she shut the door, she found Rose and Mickey in the kitchen.

"What's with the Christmas tree?"

Rose looked at her. "I thought that was you."

She shook her head.

Rose sighed, and mumbled something. "Knew danger couldn't bloody stay away."

Mickey looked at her with a frown.

--

They all sighed in relief as the Doctor sat back, having just used his Sonic Screwdriver to obliterate the tree.

"Remote control... but who's controlling it." With that, he stood up and pulled on over the pyjamas' a bathrobe.

Rose shook her head as she followed him out of the flat to the balcony, Mickey and Jackie hot on her heels.

He spotted them simply, and Rose had a flash of a taxi driven by one...

"Doctor?"

"That's the Santa's, they were following me here."

Mickey asked, "Doctor, what are they?"

The Doctor held out his Sonic Screwdriver at them, and the teleported away.

"Pilot fish." He muttered.

"What-Doctor!" Rose grabbed him as he collapsed.

"You woke me up too soon, I'm still regenerating and bursting with energy."

He clutched his chest tight, as he rolled onto the floor. Jackie and Mickey held him up as Rose had another flash, of some smoke coming from the TARDIS with him on the floor.

"Ah- my head... I'm having a neuron implosion... I need..."

Rose sighed as her mum interrupted, "What is it you need, just tell me, tell me..."

Rose got up and left them to it, grabbing the cup of tea from the bedroom he had been in. It was cold, but she hoped it would work.

When she returned to him, he looked up at her in amazement.

"It's cold but, I thought it might help your stomach, clutching it pretty tight there." She said by way of explanation.

He could barely hold it without spilling some as he sipped it. He sighed, and slowly his shivers and shudders lessened, but didn't go away, "Thanks, helpful a bit... if there's pilot fish here then- why's there an apple in my dressing gown?"

Rose could barely hold her giggles in at her mums response.

However, anything else they were going to say were cut off when he clutched his belly even tighter, and clutched her arm in a death grip.

"Something is coming." He ground out as he slipped unconscious.

"Help me get him back into bed." Rose told them.

They did, and she checked his heart beats again.

"Only one of his heart's beating..."

"What happened?" Mickey asked.

"I dunno, I think there's still some residual vortex energy in him, interfering with his Regeneration cycle."

Jackie came in, with a cup of tea for her. She took it, and answered her question as well, "The tea helped a little, it's almost like he's got the flu, but its not as bad as I think it would have been."

"How do you know that?"

Rose gave a slight smile as she patted his forehead with a damp cloth, "Just a feeling."

A thought ran through her head, and she got up, "I'm going to go to the TARDIS, might find something that could help in it."

Jackie nodded and took over for him.

She looked to Mickey and told him, "Keep them safe while I'm gone, yeah?"

--

Rose sighed as she reached the library. She swore the layout was confusing _on purpose_. As she ran her hands over the titles, looking for one that looked right, she caught one that looked weird. It reminded her of the various texts she had seen that the Doctor said had been translated for her - they retained a style similar to the languages they were actually written in. She pulled it out and smiled at the full text on the cover.

"How to Fly a TARDIS Vol. 1: Through Space."

A quick flick through revealed to her the various controls she'd need to use to get the TARDIS to sort of, teleport into her flat.

She didn't want those pilot fish teleporting it away, if they could. She certainly remembered when the Nestene had the TARDIS, and there hadn't been a visible entrance for them to have taken it in, nor could they have done so in the short time from them leaving it out to entering the Nestene's lair. The presence of it caused a breakdown of his attempt at diplomacy.

It was bumpy but somehow, and it amazed even her that it worked, The TARDIS landed in one piece. She was sure her mum would go barmy for landing it in the bathroom, confirmed seconds later when she stepped out and saw, just inches from the TARDIS door, her mum looking at her with fury in her eyes.

"What?" She asked innocently, "I had to get it away in case they tried to take it."

Jackie just rolled her eyes and left. Mickey came over and asked her, "How did you do that?"

Rose replied in a snooty voice, "I'm a Time Lady, insufferable ape."

They collapsed in fits of laughter, reminded of the Doctor's attitude about humans.

Mickey caught her attention, and as Jackie made yet another brew for them, he showed her an internet video of earth pilot fish with sharks.

And then, the video feed from Guinevere One attracted her attention.

"I think I know what that bigger fish is." She mumbled.

--

Rose kept an eye on the Doctor as Mickey logged onto the U.N.I.T. secure (that's a laugh) network. With a sigh, she wondered how long it would be before the Doctor would wake up again.

After 5 minutes, she wondered what was taking Mickey so long, when he came in, carrying his laptop. She raised her eyebrows, and he shrugged, but answered, "The Doctor's login doesn't work for some reason."

Rose smiled and said, "Pass it here."

He did, and she logged in fine.

What password was that?" He asked her.

With a grin, she said, "Bad Wolf."

With his raised eyebrow, she added, "I'm going to ask him to change it later. But in your past..." She chuckled.

Mickey just rolled his eyes.

"Now, lets see... oh there we go, live feed from Guinevere One routed through Tower of London U.N.I.T. HQ." Rose mumbled.

For a few minutes, all Mickey heard was some strange language. After it stopped, Rose spoke up. "I don't understand... the TARDIS translates alien languages inside my head _all_ the time... wherever I am."

"So why isn't it doing it now?"

"Must be the Doctor... like he's part of the circuit and... he's miswired or something."

"Broken, you mean?"

"No... I mean, I heard the alien language as its language, not English, but... I think I got a vague idea of what was said... they're bad guys." She had a thought. "If the Doctor had been part of U.N.I.T.... hold on,"

With no other word, Rose opened up a page listing various codes... "There... code 9. But how to trigger it... oh hang on.. that's an interesting code..." Suddenly, she realised, "Harriet Jones! But how do I... GRrr.... no phone numbers on here."

"What you looking for?"

"A phone number into Number 10 or U.N.I.T."

Mickey smiled and got to work.

--

The next morning and with still no luck, Rose watched as Harriet Jones made an emergency broadcast.

She was about to try something, when the whole building shook. They all heard in the distance thousands of windows break and shatter.

"What's that?!" Jackie shouted from a doorway. Rose just looked up at the roof. "Sonic shockwave... they've entered the atmosphere."

Idly, she thanked her mum for getting double-glazing, since their windows didn't smash.

After looking out at the ship, Rose settled on an idea...

"All right, Mum, get some food and stuff, Mickey, help me get him into the TARDIS."

"Why?" Jackie asked, even as she did so.

"Firstly, hide. It's the safest place on Earth."

"Is that it?" Jackie shouted.

"Mum, look in the sky. There's a great big alien spaceship hovering over London, and I'm not sure what to do."

By the time Mickey and Rose had gotten the Doctor rested up against a railing near to the console, Jackie had returned and shut the door, carrying a bit of food and a canteen bottle.

"And second?" Mickey asked.

Rose smiled. "Right, I got the TARDIS into our bathroom right? So I think I can get us to the U.N.I.T. Headquarters..."

Jackie and Mickey's eyes widened.

"Hold on tight." She told them, and quickly manipulated the console... all the while wishing she knew just what the hell she was doing.

--

Harriet was really wishing the Doctor would show up, when everyone in the control room heard the distinctive sound of the TARDIS materialising, and they saw it do so just to the side of the large wall screen.

"It's the Doctor." She proclaimed happily.

When it finished materialising, she smiled wider when Rose stepped out, but paused when she let the door shut.

"Rose."

Rose smiled, "I've been trying to get in touch with you. You really should add phone numbers to the internal network interfaces."

Major Blake stepped forward with a frown. "First, who are you, second, where is the Doctor, and third, how did you get access to our internal network?"

Rose smiled. "Rose Tyler, inside the TARDIS unconscious and code 42."

Major Blake's eyebrows raised with each slightly, and massively with 'code 42'.

Harriet stepped towards her and the TARDIS, and worriedly asked, "Is he all right?"

Rose shook her head, "He's in the middle of a Regeneration cycle, only it's gone wrong due to residual Vortex energy in his system."

Blake was visibly shaken. "No one can absorb the Time Vortex." He uttered. "What was he thinking?"

Rose laughed nervously, and answered, "You mean, what was I thinking... uhm... anyway."

Harriet and Blake shared a shocked look.

"Do you have a Doctor here who might be able to help him? Only one of his hearts is beating-"

Harriet's assistant interrupted. "We're getting a signal from the Sycorax vessel."

Rose watched on as Harriet Jones stepped forward, only to be beamed onto the ship along with her assistant Alex, Major Blake and Daniel Llewellyn.

The others looked to her, and she sighed. "Damn it..." She muttered, before re-entering the TARDIS. She ran to the controls, and hoping to god she got it right, took another trip, her mum and Mickey watching on in a stupor.

--

Daniel Llewellyn stepped forward, and just as he was struck with the alien's whip, the TARDIS rematerialised.

Rose stepped out, joining Harriet, Alex and Blake.

She looked at the bones, and back at the Sycorax. Harriet saw the hard look in her eyes.

Major Blake stepped forward and protested, having not noticed her arrival, "He was your _prisoner_. Even your people must have articles of-" He cut of as the alien sent the whip at him.

And then, amazingly, Rose grabbed him and pulled him back just as the whip struck, and the energy passed into her.

Blake looked at her in shock, although that was hard to tell since he was quite singed.

Mickey ran out after her, dropping the cantina of tea as he did, and Jackie stepped out tentatively behind him, closing the door just in time to prevent the other guard Sycoraxs from getting into it.

Alex looked down at his PDA as the Sycorax spoke. As it read out the translation, he spoke, "The Yellow Girl with the Blue Box, She speaks for your planet."

"She can't..." Harriet began, but the Sycorax interrupted.

Alex frowned, "Hang on, this must be malfunctioning or something."

"Why?"

"The One that shines like the Sun, she speaks."

Rose stepped forward. "I speak for planet Earth."

Harriet tried to pull her back, "They'll kill you."

"Never stopped the Doctor did it? Now..." She spoke up, "I address the Sycorax. Under article 42 of the Shadow Proclamation, Earth is a protected planet, and I command you to leave this world."

The Sycorax behind the leader all laughed, but the leader himself simply gazed at her.

He spoke, and Rose understood the meaning, to which she replied before Alex could translate, "I am SERIOUS. LEAVE this world or suffer the consequences."

The Sycorax spoke again, and Alex seemed to understand something - Rose didn't really need the translations, she understood it somehow, but he translated for the others. "We are the Sycorax, we stride the darkness, and bow to no one. Next to us, Golden Wolf? you are nothing but a wailing child with your stolen words. Lest your planet can present a champion, then your world will be gutted." Alex continued, not noticing when the Sycorax began to speak English. "And your people enslaved." Finally, he noticed, "Hold on, that's English."

Rose smiled. "If you're talking English..."

"I would never dirty my tongue with your primitive bile."

"But that's English, can you hear English?" Rose asked the others, they nodded.

"I speak only Sycoraxic!"

Rose smile widened. "If you're speaking Sycoraxic but we can hear English, that means the TARDIS is translating... and that means..."

Everyone turned to the TARDIS to see the doors open, and a very much awake Doctor stood smiling. "Did you miss me?"

Rose rolled her eyes but smiled even more.

The Sycorax leader lashed his whip at the Doctor, and both Blake and Harriet noticed how like Rose, the Doctor wasn't affected by the energy, as he grabbed it. "Ooh, you could take someone's eyes out with that."

He strolled up to the Sycorax, and as the leader went to strike him with his staff, the Doctor grabbed up and took it from him and snapped it in half over his knee. "Just can't get the staff. Now you... just wait. I'm busy." The Doctor pointed at him to make his point, before he turned back to everyone.

"Mickey... hello... and Jackie... ooh wait why you up here? Never mind anyway. And Harriet Jones, MP for Fly-dale North. Blimey its like This Is Your Life." He looked at Rose and explained, "Tea, that's what I needed. a good cup of tea. Superheated infusion of free radicals and tannin. Just the thing for healing Time Lord synapses. Now, first things first. Be honest. How do I look?"

"Different." Rose told him with a vague smile.

"Good different or Bad different?"

"Does it need saying?" She replied with an eyebrow raised but a smile on her face.

"Am I, ginger?"

"No, just sort of... brown."

"Oh no, I wanted to be ginger, never been ginger..." The Doctor whined. "And you, Rose Tyler. You gave up on me. - oo, that was rude, that the kind of man I am now? Rude and not ginger."

"Sorry, who's this?" Harriet asked.

"The Doctor." The Doctor replied.

"What happened to my Doctor? or is it just a title that's passed on?"

Rose answered for her. "It's him - our Doctor, he's just regenerated."

Blake added, "That part of his U.N.I.T. file was classified even to you ma'am."

"Oh."

"We were trapped in 10 Downing street together. And you weren't scared of the Slitheen, what scared you was the thought of your mother alone."

"My god."

"Did you win the election?"

"Landslide majority."

"Congratulations."

--

The Doctor, Rose, Mickey, Jackie and the others left via the TARDIS, one of the de facto leaders telling them to use it to leave as they did to get there. At that the Doctor had frowned but followed the request of sorts all the same.

Upon landing, Harriet, Alex and Blake stepped out to look up and see the ship leave, the rest followed.

Rose hugged Alex, who stiffened and pushed her away. "Prime Minister!"

Harriet and the Doctor turned to him, as they heard his shock.

"U.N.I.T. reports weapons fire coming from the ship! Torchwood's defences are blocking them but..."

"Is it ready to fire?"

"Yes Ma'am, just on-line now."

Without hesitation, she gave the order, "Fire."

The Doctor looked shocked as beams came from all around them to focalize and strike up and out to space, and they watched a large explosion.

"What is that?"

The Doctor looked at Harriet Jones, "That was murder."

"That was defence." She countered, "It was adapted from alien technology, a ship that fell to Earth 10 years ago."

He looked about ready to say something, but Harriet pounded on, "And you heard his report, they were firing on us. We merely fired back. I'm sorry Doctor but you're not here all the time, you come and go, and even so, this time they clearly ignored your command to leave us in peace. I doubt you could have had the opportunity to block their weapons and strike back. It happened today, Mr Llewellyn died just before Rose brought you on-board. It's only thanks to Rose pulling him back that Major Blake didn't die the same way - that whip you pulled off that Sycorax."

Rose interjected, "She's got a point, Doctor. You're not always here and they ignored your warning."

The Doctor took a deep breath to calm himself, and sighed. "Right, fine. But you didn't have to completely _obliterate_ them. You could have fired a warning shot, show them that you could defend against them."

"And they would wonder why we didn't do so when they first activated the Blood control - Doctor, I understand your point of view, believe me, I'm not dismissing it out of hand. But you must understand our position."

The Doctor stared, for a minute before he sighed again. "Fine. Fine, all right I wont try to depose you for this."

"Depose me?" Harriet asked, sighing in relief but worried about what he meant.

"If they hadn't tried to fire I would have but you're right, they ignored me..."

"It's like you said, Doctor, when he went after you after agreeing. No second chances."

Her using his own point against him made him smile faintly. "Prime Minister."

He pulled her into a hug.

"Doctor?"

"Might just hang around for a few days, get used to this new body."

"New years?" She asked.

He grinned faintly and nodded. "Why not." He looked at the fairly quiet Major in U.N.I.T. uniform. "Major Blake, I believe U.N.I.T. will want to document my Regeneration in your files?"

He shook his head, "Already part of them, Sir, special code to ensure those very files can only be decrypted after the actual event."

"Oh. Well at least you didn't Salut-" He stopped as Blake did exactly what the Doctor said he hadn't done. "Oh don't Salute. Really... no." Blake grinned at him. "Sarcasm from a U.N.I.T. Major... never heard the like."

Rose grinned as she stepped up to his side. "Come on then, Doctor, we've got a Christmas turkey waiting." He grinned down at her, and she whispered, "I mean, nut loaf of course."

"Of course. And Harriet?"

"Yes Doctor?"

"Merry Christmas."

--


	3. Season 2 First Half

**Chapter 3  
**

**Season 2, "The First Half"**

_**New Earth**_

The Doctor smiled at Rose, who screamed from shock.

"Why didn't you warn me?" She ground out after the spray stopped.

He didn't reply, just grinned at her.

"Bad for you that I actually caught this lift…"

That wiped the smile off of his face.

--

Rose smiled as she and the Doctor walked up to the Face of Boe.

"Novice Hame, if you could please look after this gentleman and lady?"

"Of course." Novice replied. She turned to the Doctor and Rose, and quietly told them, "I'm afriad the Face of Boe is asleep, it's all he tends to do these days. Are you friends?"

"Oh, we met just the once, on Platform one. What's wrong with him?" The Doctor asked.

"I'm so sorry, I thought you knew... I'm afraid he's dying."

"Of what?" Rose asked quietly, as she stepped upto the glass. She felt something, but she didn't know what it was or meant.

"Old Age, the one thing we can't cure. He's… thousands of years old. Some people say millions, although that's impossible."

"Oh, no, I like impossible." The Doctor replied with a faint smile, before he stepped forward and bent down slightly. He spoke to the Face of Boe, "I'm here. I look a bit different, but it's me, it's the Doctor."

The only reaction to his presence that the Face made was to move about a little with low groans, as though he were dreaming.

"Hello again," Rose began, and she felt a smile crawl its way onto her face as the Face shifted and let a contented groan out, "I'm tempted to knock on here to wake you up, but if Novice Hame is right, you need rest."

Almost as if in response, the Face made another groan, and the Doctor smiled at her. "I think he agrees with you."

"Does no one else visit him?" Rose asked of Novice Hame.

"The rest of Boekind became extinct, long ago. He's the only one left. Legend says that, the Face of Boe has watched the Universe grow old." Rose glanced at the Doctor, who gave her a sad smile, "There's all sorts of superstitions around him. One story, says that just before his death, the Face of Boe will impart his great secret, but he will speak those words only to one like himself."

"What does that mean?" The Doctor asked.

"It's just a story…" Novice Hame replied.

"Tell me the rest." The Doctor asked, a strange expression on his face.

Rose looked at the Doctor with a sad smile, she guessed she knew what the Novice would mean without knowing.

"It's said he'll talk to a wanderer, someone without a home, the lonely deity."

The Doctor and Rose shared a look.

"You don't think…" she began.

"… Nah… can't be."

"Oh?"

"I'm not lonely, I got you."

Rose smiled sadly, as they both looked at the Face, wondering when he'd wake up.

--

Rose sighed, and asked the Doctor, "In almost 900 years of travelling, have you ever been somewhere and something not _actually_ happen that puts you or your friends in peril?"

The Doctor chuckled quietly, but didn't answer, as they both returned to the Face of Boe's ward.

"What about friends that haven't been possessed."

"Oh, well, only a few got possessed."

"Lucky me."

"Lucky that Human biology had evolved over the many millions of years before Cassandra that your body rejected her mind without killing you, had you been nearer to her physiology - before she got rid of it that is - your body wouldn't have rejected her and your mind would have been erased, like installing a new operating system over the last one."

"Oh, like you can't install that Apple Mac on a Windows-based PC, but if you installed a fresh copy…"

"Exactly."

Rose shook her head. "Seriously, one of these days we're going to have a quiet trip where the excitement we get doesn't originate from being in a dangerous situation." With that said, Rose walked ahead, and found the Face was awake.

"Hello." She greeted warmly.

_'Hello, Rose Tyler.'_ The Face greeted her.

She turned her head slightly, with a faint smile, "You speak through telepathy?"

The Face chuckled, both audibly and telepathically, before he replied, _'Always the quick one. Yes, as my vocal cords deteriorated millenia ago. Thankfully a century before I could no longer speak, I had developed projection telepathy.'_

"How old are you? I mean, sorry but… I'm curious."

_'No offence taken, Rose. I myself lost count, but know this. I have seen Earth as you saw it.'_

Rose looked at the Doctor, whose' eyes widened also.

"You were on Earth - the original Earth, in the 20th Century? How did you manage that?"

The Face turned to him slightly, and replied, _'I was not always just a Face, Doctor. I used to be able to walk among the peoples of Earth with only my good looks to attract attention.'_

Rose chuckled, "Pretentious are we?"

_'Perhaps.'_ The Face joked back.

"So, I could have walked by you on the street and I wouldn't have known it?" Rose asked curiously.

The Face made a nodding motion, and replied, _'My past self will meet you again, Rose Tyler. You can not know it until my past self returned to his life on Earth, so in a way, yes.'_

"Crossing personal timelines? Now that's intriguing." The Doctor mumbled. "And what about me?"

The Face gave a sad sigh, _'I'm afraid, Doctor, that I can not tell you. All I can say is that I have heard of the laws of the Time Lords when they were around. Information pertaining to your own future must not be revealed unless vital to your own continued existence. Whether or not I have met you in your future, my past.'_

The Doctor gave a sad sigh, before he noticed Novice Hame look at them confused, staring. "I'm sorry for staring… it's just, I have never seen anyone able to communicate so clearly." She sighed sadly, "I myself am unable to hear him clearly."

The Doctor looked at the Face in question, so he replied, _'In time, she will. For now, I have asked the local enforcement to entrust her to my custody.'_

"That's…" The Doctor began, but couldn't find a word.

Airily, the Face commented, _'She is a good nurse, attentative and she hears my song well enough that I have high hopes for her.'_

Rose' eyes widened, "That's what that sound is? I can barely hear it, but…"

The Face of Boe looked at her in shock, as did the Doctor. _'You can hear my song?'_

"Yes."

_'This is unexpected surprise, even for me, but not an unwelcome one. One day, maybe you will hear it clearly enough to recognise the tune._'

Rose shared a look with the Doctor, who grinned at her. "Well, I hope when you do, Rose, you tell me because, I can't hear it."

_'Please, I'm afraid our time is shorter than we all would like. I have my vessel in orbit waiting.'_

"But, you were supposed to be dying." The Doctor pointed out, but happy that it was not so.

_'There are better things to do today, old friend. Dying can wait. I had grown tired of the universe, but you and Rose once again taught me to look at it anew.'_

"There are legends, saying you are millions of years old. But if you know me, I can't help but wonder, if you had access to time travel and used it."

The deep reverberating chuckle of the Face of Boe came through to them all in their heads, and he replied, _'I have... now and then. But no, that would be impossible.'_

"Wouldn't it just? I got the impression, there was something you wanted to tell me?"

_'The Story of the wanderer.'_ The Face paused, and then smiled secretly,_ 'I _wondered_ when you would bring it up. It can wait.'_

"Oh, does it have to?"

Without being obvious of who he was talking to, he finished, _'I will meet you for the Third time with this name, for the last time. Then, the truth shall be told. Until then…'_ The Face of Boe took on an intense look, and while Rose didn't hear it, just as he dematerialised in a teleport, the Doctor heard, _'It is impossible for a human to absorb a time vortex and live, or so you thought.'_

The Doctor was quiet for a moment, then replied, "Oh, that was enigmatic. Textbook enigmatic."

"I think he learned it from you then." Rose inserted. "You can be dictionary definition of enigmatic at times."

--

_**Tooth and Claw**_

Rose stepped forward, wary but strangely calm and confident, her eyes locked on the hooded figure in the cage.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"Don't enrage him." The groundskeeper warned.

"Where are you from? You're not from Earth. What planet are you from?"

"Oh… intelligence."

"Where were you born?"

"This body… 10 miles away. A weakling, heart-sick boy. Stolen away at night by the brethren for my… cultivation. I carved out his soul and sat in his, heart."

Rose shuddered slightly, but showed no other outward sign of how unsettled she was. She focussed on his eyes, staring directly into them, and he did the same. "So, the body's human, but what about you, the thing inside?"

"So far from home."

"If you wanna get back home, we can help." Rose told him. The others looked at her in confusion.

"Why would I leave this place? A world of industry, of workforce and warfare. I could turn it to such progress…"

"How would you do that?"

"I would migrate to the holy monarch."

"Queen Victoria?"

"With one bite. I would pass into her blood, and then it begins, the empire of the Wolf… You have many question."

Suddenly, the boy jumped forward in his cage. "You've seen it too…"

"Seen what?"

"There is something of the Wolf about you. You burn like the Sun…"

Rose stood up and moved as close as she could with the chain on her leg. One of the Brethren, who had remained inside, watched warily, unused to such bravery exibited by those outside of their brotherhood.

Rose then leaned forward, and spoke quietly, loud enough that the others could hear, but barely a whisper. "You're right. There is something of the Wolf about me. But I'm a different animal to you and your kind. You flourish in the moonlight, but not all places have moons. But every one has a Sun. You say I burn like the Sun? Well, you try anything and you'll find out just how true that statement is."

--

Rose flicked rapidly through the books, eyes scanning the pages and discarding them at a rate she didn't realise, but not as fast as the Doctor was doing, who flicked through several 500-odd paged books a minute. Between getting another batch, he shot odd looks at her, wondering if she was actually looking.

As he finished one batch, he saw her grab another batch with a curious look on her face. As though she recognised something. Instead of starting from the top, she picked a specific one. She had barely done started the same rate of flicking through she had used with the others when she stopped and plopped the book on the table, open halfway through.

"Look what your dad found." Rose said to Sir Robert.

The Doctor glanced at her, curious, but paid attention to it. It was a drawing, of a falling meteor.

"A, space ship or meteor, something, fell to earth. 'In the year of our lord, 1540, under the reign of King James the Fifth, an almighty fire did burn in the pit.'"

Sir Robert looked at her, "That's, the glen of Saint Cathrine, just by the monastery."

"But that was 300 years ago." The Doctor prodded, curious to see if Rose was going to surprise him again.

"Okay, I don't care what race you are, 300 years is a long time to wait… so maybe… it was hurt or… Doctor?"

"Only a single cell survived. Adapting slowly down the generations, it survived through the humans. Host after host after host."

"But why does it want the throne?" Sir Robert asked.

"It doesn't just want the throne itself. It wants an empire to command. And milady certainly has command of one." Rose looked at Queen Victoria, and turned back, "The Empire of the Wolf. Starships fuelled by coal and driven by steam."

"The Victorian age accelerated." The Doctor whispered. Sir Robert frowned at their words, but worried also.

--

Rose settled down from her amusement at learning the Royal Family was a bunch of werewolves as The Doctor took the TARDIS back into the time vortex, ready to go to any time any place at any moments notice.

"I can't believe you got us banished." Rose told him.

"Oh come on, it wasn't my fault." He complained.

"I know you get excited to learn new things even in the face of impending doom, but come on, you were going over the top a bit…"

He shook his head side to side and commented, "Okay, I'll give you that one, Dame Tyler. So. When to? Forward in time? Back in time?"

"Still got Sheffield to get to." Rose told him, amused.

"Oh yes. but we could go to that time any time we like."

"-And what better time than the time I suggested, delayed by a trip discovering the existence of werewolves?"

"Fair point. Off we go. 1979, and I damn well hope I get it right this time!"

--

_**"School Reunion"**_

Rose smiled as she realised Sarah Jane Smith was struggling with the Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver.

"Oh pass it here."

Sarah handed her the screwdriver, and within seconds, she got it working.

"Used to work first time back in my day."

"Well, things were different back then." Rose commented,

"Rose, can I give you a bit of advice?"

Rose got up and tried to bring the computer out of its' standby mode. "I get the feeling you're about to."

"I know how, intense, a relationship with the Doctor can be, I don't want you to feel like I'm intruding."

Rose looked up at her and assured her, "I don't feel threatened by you if that's what you're getting at."

"Right… Good… cuz I'm not interested in picking up where we left off."

Rose looked at the computer, and not really meaning it, she asked, "No? With the big sad eyes and the robot dog, what else were you doing last night?"

Sarah Jane took the bait, as she replied, "I was just saying how _hard_ it was adjusting back to life back on Earth."

Rose stood up, and with a grin that wasn't visible to Sarah Jane, "Thing is, when you two met, they'd only just got rid of rationing. It's no wonder all that space stuff was a bit too much for you."

"I had no problem with space stuff!" Sarah Jane argued, and Rose turned, her grin hidden as she played up the 'jealous new girlfriend'. "I saw things you wouldn't believe."

"Try me." Rose spoke, curious.

"Mummies."

Rose didn't really react, after her first trip into the past, little that Sarah Jane had to say would shock her - she was doing it more to hear about Sarah Jane and her Doctor's travels. But she had to give a bit, since it was an 'argument'. "I've met ghosts."

"Robots, lots of Robots."

"Slitheen from Raxicorofalipatorious… in _Downing Street_."

"Daleks!"

Rose snorted, and with a very suggestive grin (one suggesting lots of gratutious violence) she countered, "Met the Emporer."

"Anti-Matter Monsters."

"Gas-Mask Zombies in World War Two."

"Real Living Dinosaurs"

"Real Living Werewolf - Queen Victoria that."

"What- The Loch Ness MONSTER!" Sarah Jane finished, having nearly lost her rag.

Rose had to ask, "Seriously?"

After a few seconds to calm down, Sarah Jane had to ask, "Queen Victoria's a Werewolf?"

Rose nodded. "Met her about 2 weeks ago, fought off the werewolf to stop a full possession. You know how it is I guess, go someplace, and something just _absolutely has to happen_ to throw the timeline off if we don't fix things." Sarah Jane smiled slightly and nodded. "Well, This werewolf wanted to make Queen Victoria her host, and even though we beat it, Her Majesty got a cut, and we guessed that she at least got a cell or so. Nothing proven really, It's just that after that incident, the Doctor explained how the Queen really did suffer from a blood disorder that came out of nowhere, that her children suffered and so on down through the royal blood line. Hell it could be just a disease she got from the doorframe, but with his luck, it would have been up until he waltzed in."

Sarah Jane fought off her smile. "Gas Mask Zombies?" She asked.

Rose smiled at the reminder. "A Kid who got injured, he was out, wearing a gas mask at the time when this, alien battle-field type amublance with nano robots crashed, and the robots didn't know what humans where supposed to be like, so after 'fixing' the kid from death, giving him super powers to boot, it proceeded to do the same to anyone who came into contact with the boy, using it's only template it had: A being with a gasmask. they literally 'grew' a gasmask for a face. The Doctor fixed it when the boy's mother was recognised as such by the nanogenes."

"But in between there was fear for your lives and so forth?"

"Of course."

"So you met the Dalek Emporer?" Sarah Jane asked as they both got back to work on the computers.

"Oh, I not only met him, I killed him. It's the reason the Doctor had to regenerate."

Sarah Jane frowned, "But, as far as I know, Time Lords aren't immune to a Dalek death ray - a direct hit and they're dead, only glancing ones…"

Rose corrected her, "That's not what made him need to regenerate. He put me in the TARDIS and triggered this security protocol - one, I think - and sent me back to my mum here, about 6 few months back local time. Leaving himself stranded in the year 200,100."

"How did he get back? I've tried a few times to pilot the TARDIS and it didn't let me."

Rose frowned, but worked it up to the TARDIS being living and so chose to allow the times she did.

"Well, I kind of didn't try that. Afraid I would land too far into the future or something. So I opened up the Heart of the TARDIS and looked into her."

Sarah Jane was frozen.

"I told the TARDIS to take us back as I absorbed the Time Vortex, and by the time I had taken her in, I was there. Broke the bonds on the emporers' existence - and not just him, his whole fleet of daleks, thousands of ships with thousands of daleks on each. Once I was done, the Idiot, I mean, the Doctor absorbed it before putting it back in the TARDIS. I could have put it back myself."

"You had the Time Vortex-?"

"Yeah, can barely remember anything beyond whatever had been my main focus when i did that whole divide-his-existence, but I occassionally get a flash of things. God why won't this work?" Rose grumbled.

Trying to change the subject, Sarah Jane asked, "Does he still stroke bits of the TARDIS?"

Rose looked at her, and nodded but chided, "Don't laugh. I find myself doing that a bit too on occassion. We've been through a lot."

--

_**"Rise of the Cybermen"**_

Rose sighed, she really, really wanted to go see the Pete Tyler of this world, but she understood the Doctor's points all too well. The last time, she almost caused the universe to implode in a strange sort of grandfather paradox. While the danger in this parallel universe was different, less catastrophic in universal potential, or so she thought, she had to admit, it would make her upset. For all she knew, this worlds' Pete and Jackie hadn't adopted her, and got a dog as her mum had joked once.

She sat on a park bench, looking out over the Thames, and glancing at the Zeppellins. Flashes of the things she had seen ran through her mind.

Slowly, they began to come quicker, and quicker. She closed her eyes and willed them to stop, thinking that the time for those flashes of what could have been was for after they got back to their own universe.

Because she knew they would. That was one of the flashes she had seen through the time vortex and Heart of the TARDIS - their continued journey through Space and Time, meeting people of all sorts of races, fighting battles and learning - oh, all the learning she was still to do - all in her own universe. She hadn't seen anything of this universe, the time vortex didn't exist for this one, things were too different, which made her think that Pete and Jackie in this universe didn't adopt Rose - she had seen glimpses of other Rose Tyler's, travelling with other Doctors, in various forms in various parallel worlds. Not this one.

A cough interrupted her musings.

"Doctor?"

"I thought you'd have ran off to see this worlds Pete and Jackie by now." He told her.

"Nah, think it'd be weird for us all if I did. Forbidden fruit and all that."

"That's a mature way to put it." The Doctor teased.

"I don't even know if I exist in this universe." She added.

"What? Why wouldn't you exist here? Every universe could do with a Rose Tyler." The Doctor complimented, as he hopped over the back of the bench and sat beside her.

"Well, my Mum once told me about how my Dad's stupid get-rich-quick schemes never really worked because he hardly had time to work on them, what with a full-time job plus lots of overtime so he could afford to feed us. I can't help but wonder, if he never ad- I mean, if they never had me, he'd not need to go through so much overtime, and have the spare time to actually work on his schemes… maybe that's why this Pete Tyler seems to have gotten successful… he had the time to work on it."

The Doctor caught her little slip, and suspected what she was going to say. "You were adopted?"

She sighed, and shrugged. "Yeah. Said I was like a gift from god. They'd been trying to have a child but it wasn't working. At the time I didn't know what they meant by that, still thought that babies were brought in by stalk." She chuckled. "They told me when I was 10, because I found the adoption papers in a pile of Dad's old things. I asked about who my birth parents were when I was 16, but my Mum said she didn't know - my Dad did, and…"

"And he died." He mumbled. "Don't get me wrong, but, is that why you wanted to go see him? Find out who…?"

"One of the reasons, yeah; but not the main one. In all the… excitement, I forgot to even ask. I couldn't really anyway, what would I have said? 'Oh hi, I'm Rose from the future, I just saved your life so I could ask you who my birth parents were'?"

The Doctor had to agree, she had a point. "Yeah, good thing you didn't. Then again, he did realise who you were towards the end. You could have asked then, I'm sure he would have understood given that he also understood that you came back to save him, and that it was such a fixed point in history that he had to die…"

She shook her head. "My Mum did tell me that whoever it was, dropped me on their doorstep. Whoever they were, my Dad was told who they were, but promised to tell me - and my Mum - when I was older. All I had from them was a locket, that wouldn't open."

The Doctor nodded. "Did you bring it with you?"

She nodded, but sighed again, "I couldn't find it though, after the Gamestation… I guess I lost it on the station. Jack saw it before then, so I'm sure he'd recognise it when he comes, came? Across it in his bid to rebuild 200,100 Earth. When we get back, we should go visit him, see if he did come across it."

"Temporal Treasure hunt?" The Doctor asked amused at the idea, but sighed when she nodded. "We can't. The TARDIS is dead, Rose. There's no Vortex... no power to anything. Nothing. She's… Dead." He finished, distraught.

She hugged him, pulled him close to her, buried her head in his chest and heard the double drum of his hearts. "She's alive, Doctor, I'm sure of it. She can't just die, not like this."

"I hope so too." He mumbled, as he closed his eyes.

A sudden snap made them both jump in their seats.

"Oh wait, I forget to get you to say 'Cheese'." Mickey Joked. "Now come on Doctor, haven't you got a TARDIS to fix?"

The Doctor stood up and gave an apologetic smile to Rose.

"It's alright. Go on. I can resist the want to go see them." Her phone beeped, and within a few seconds she added, "I can just see if there's a parallel me here through this. Cybus network thing…" she mumbled, trailing off.

--

Rose froze in terror. It was too soon, too fast, too… well she wasn't sure what else, but she knew that she wasn't prepared. Nor was the Doctor, who recognised them personally.

She was about to make for the window when her route was blocked.

"DELETE" the Cyberman said in its monotone.

She dodged around, and barely felt the hand and a tickling sensation in her arm.

Then they, the Doctor, Pete of this world, Rickey - this worlds' Mickey - aswell as Mickey and someone else, were caught in the front yard. The Doctor tried to surrender but they declared that he would be deleted.

They were about to reach for him when she pulled him back. "NO!"

He shouted too, when the hand grabbed her. "ROSE!"

"RESIST AND YOU ARE INCOMPATIBLE FOR UPGRADE. MAXIMUM DELETION" the Cyberman declared regardless, and suddenly, Rose tensed and fell to the ground, arm still held by the Cyberman, as massive amounts of electricity flowed through her. For too long, the current held.

When it was over, the Doctor stared at her in shock, amazement, awe and worry.

"DELETION UNSUCCESSFUL." The Cyberman intoned, in it's version of shock.

Tendrils of electrical current passed through her, her body struggling to absorb all of that electricity. She put her hand on the chest plate, and the electricity found an outlet.

The Cyberman fell, moaning in pain. And moments later, they were all in a van.

"Rose…" The Doctor kept whispering to her over and over, hugging her close to make sure she was real, alive and relatively speaking, alright.

"Excuse me but, that charge of electricity should have killed you." Pete interrupted.

"So should the time vortex." Rose mumbled, and the Doctor nodded his head in agreement, but neither said anything else for a few minutes.

--


	4. Season 2 Second Half

**Sorry, Fell asleep ten minutes before i was going to post this.  


* * *

Chapter 4  
**

**Season 2, "The Second Half"**

_**Age of Steel**_

The Doctor smiled at Rose, who returned it.

"And here I thought, you would get all emotional human ape on me."

Rose just punched him in the arm. "Oi, I'm not just any ole' ape."

His smile turned into a grin. "But you admit, you're an ape."

"No I'm not."

"You just said it."

"Did not."

"Oi." Mickey and Rickey interrupted.

"Whats all that about?" Pete asked as the van neared the Cybermen Factory.

--

The Doctor sighed again, and muttered, "Here we go again."

Mrs Moore just sniggered at his attitude. "Why do I get the feeling that you attract trouble with a capital T and a cherry on top?"

He half smiled at her. "Can't have a holiday, standard holiday, no trouble except that with finding a decent restaurant, and the usual hassle with substandard hotel rooms."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and it's even worse since I started travelling with Rose. It's like its attracted to her just as much. Heard a few tales of her life before she met me, always on the go. Two of her Jobs blew up, and that's not counting the department store she worked at that _I_ blew up."

"You blew up her Job?"

"Yeah well, her store was being used as a transmitter or something for a bunch of Autons." He justified.

"Autons aren't around, they were wiped out a decade ago."

The Doctor looked at her. "How would you know that?"

"Public knowledge, the Torchwood Institute, surely you've heard of it?"

The Doctor paused, and when he replied, it was with a seriousness that took her off-guard, "I'm from a parallel universe. I've only heard of Torchwood once in all my life that I spent here on Earth - well, _my_ Earth - and I've spent centuries of it here."

"You're not human?" She asked as they reached the entrance to the tunnels into the Factory. The way she asked it made him wonder if this parallel was just as mirrored with the human race here as acknowledging of alien life as the one he left just the other day.

"Time Lord. We can live several centuries without needing to regenerate, and taking our regenerations into account, my race and I had the potential to each live several millenia."

"Had?"

"I'm 901 years old, Regenerated 9 times because of all that Trouble with a capital T that followed me around. probably got another 400 years in me yet if nothing untoward happens to reduce that figure. The rest of my race died. Burned during a War - a Time War. _The_ Time War, I fought against an enemy unlike any the universe - my universe - had ever seen before or since. Took destroying my own race to beat them. Monsters and Angels, both or neither." With a sad sigh, he added, "A few of our people tried to leave before it happened, but something happened just before the conclusion of the war. The time-lock that would prevent others from entering the Time War after it ended prevented them from leaving. Only I got out. The Last, the only survivor. Ever since I've travelled. I carried so much guilt - still do, but I've… managed only because of Rose. I met her some time after my 8th regeneration. I hadn't really wanted to know what face I bore, since that one, I… I had been 'born' if you will, in battle, full of anger and hate. It's because of Rose that I learned to see life anew. Despite the constant peril, running for our lives, getting out of traps and so forth, she doesn't want to stop travelling with me. Over a year and a half she's given. Longer than any other I had travelled with previously, encountered more than almost all the others. By rights she should hate me for getting her into danger so many times… but she doesn't. Sometimes I wonder if she has it within her to hate me, and for every moment that I doubt it is a gift."

"You sound like you care for her a lot."

"She saved me from death several times. The first time we met, and several times since. One of those times… by rights, physics and human physiology, she should have burned with the power she held. But she didn't. I sent her back home out of harms way. I knew I would die that day. I felt certain of it. And then she appeared like an angel, glow and all, finished the Time War once and for all. A whole fleet of the enemy force that my people fought with great difficulty. It took the destruction of my home planet to defeat armies that numbered in the billions. And she destroyed an army of the same creatures that numbered in the billions also, in less than 2 minutes. She's one in a trillion trillion, that girl. That angel."

Mrs Moore smiled sadly, and corrected, "No, you sound like you don't just care for her, but-"

The Doctor shook his head, and said, "Anyway, haven't we got a factory to infiltrate?"

--

Rose sighed as she was presented before a strange-looking Cyberman.

"I am Cyber Controller. You are not like the others. Your sensor readout is contradictory, and does not register on others. Explain."

Rose wondered what that was about, and asked as much.

"You will explain or you will be deleted. Explain."

"If you think I'm going to explain something that I don't know myself, then you're not as, smart as you try to be."

"If you will not explain you will be deleted. However, you will not be deleted just yet. Your companion is being brought here for questioning, and you may be useful in extracting them from him."

"Companion?" Rose asked confused.

"The one with a Binary Cardio-vascular system."

Pete looked at her, and she explained quietly to him, "He's got two Hearts. That's probably what he means."

"That is exactly what I mean. He does not register as Human, and yet his sensor read out is just as contradictory as your own."

--

"You are both the same, you are both incompatible for upgrade, you will be taken for additional analysis. Comply or be deleted."

The Doctor and Rose both sighed, and then the Doctor launched into this big speech, glancing at a camera occasionally, with a few hand signals thrown in.

--

Rose held back a sniffle as Mickey told her he was staying.

"What if I need you?"

"You don't need me, Rose, you haven't since the day you met the Doctor. The wonderful yet rude alien with three hearts."

"Two hearts." Rose corrected.

"No, three. Two his own, and the third… yours."

Rose hugged him tight, and kissed him on the cheek.

"Goodbye, Rose Tyler."

She smiled slightly, and promised, "This isn't goodbye Mickey. I'll see you again."

"You can't, you heard the Doctor."

"We got here by accident. Who's to say it won't happen again?" She asked rhetorically to make her point.

"Ah right. If that's what you want. See you later, Rose. Have a good life until and after then, yeah?"

She nodded, and whispered, "I know we'll see each other again." And went back to the TARDIS.

As she shut the door, she saw the look on the Doctor's face. He had lots of questions, and the first one he asked, as he began the process of returnign to their home universe, was, "What do you mean, you know we'll see him again?"

She gave him a mysterious smile, and shrugged. "There was this one gap, crack or whatever, in Time that we fell through. Who's to say it's not the only one we'll run into, with our luck?"

"Oh come on, now you just jinxed us?"

"Like we weren't jinxed before?"

"Well… you got me there. Now, back to your Mums to say hello, assure yourself that she didn't die and all that emotional baggage?"

"Oi. No acting like you don't care."

"Who's saying I'm acting?" He joked.

"I know you, Doctor. Don't deny it. If anything… you care too much."

He smiled slightly, and as the TARDIS jerked to a halt, he had an idea. "I think we should change first, she might get the wrong impression."

"Where did we land?" She asked.

"Oh, a few blocks from your flat, not sure if the TARDIS would fit in your living room."

"She fit in the bathroom, so she should fit in the living room too."

"She's never been in your flat."

"Yes she was, over Christmas."

"I landed her outside your flat." He stated.

"Yes you did. But I wanted to keep her protected from those Pilot Fish and the Sycorax ship, so put her in the bathroom."

"She can't fit through the door." He pointed out.

She sighed, and said, "Change, then I'll show you she can fit, alright?"

"Sure."

--

10 minutes later, and the Doctor was staring at her in confusion as they landed.

"If you've landed me in the Dark ages-" He stopped upon seeing her open the door to reveal her living room.

"What?"

"Doctor?" She asked.

"WHAT?"

"DOCTOR?!"

"WHAT?!" he exclaimed again in total confusion.

After the heartfelt meeting with Jackie, and a brew in hand half-drunk, he finally recovered enough to ask, "Rose Tyler, have you been piloting the TARDIS without my knowledge?"

She shrugged, and nodded.

"When? And that's another thing: HOW?"

"Oh, simple, really. Just followed the instructions in that piloting lessons book you have. Not found the Time-Travel volume of it yet, but the space part of it I can do."

He stared for a minute before he asked, "What piloting lessons book?"

She frowned. "You've not seen one before?"

"No."

She reached into her jacket and pulled it out, and handed it to him.

"You read this?" He asked. He _thought_ that she said that alien languages weren't translating for her when he was unconscious, yet she read this, written in Gallifreyan.

"Yeah. You should read it, might get the right places next few trips." She teased.

"Alright alright, I'll give it a good read through." He grumbled, as he opened a few pages and flicked through it, going slow for effect.

A cough made him look up.

"Anymore questions, My Lord?" She asked with a grin.

"Yeah, I got one. How many times did you pilot the TARDIS? Because some words that Sycorax spoke before is starting to make sense."

"Well, I took her from here to U.N.I.T., then from there to the Sycorax vessel to get Harriet back."

"So three times?"

"Yeah."

"Just three times?"

"Yeah, didn't know how you'd react if you knew…"

He sighed, and stood up. He stepped up to her and pulled her up and into a hug. "I'm very very… proud of you, Rose Tyler."

She grinned and sank deeper into his embrace, and felt him lower his head ontop of her. Slowly, the steady double-beat of his two hearts started to rock her into a slumber.

When he noticed, he simply smiled and held the embrace until she began to relax too much to stay stood up, and helped her to her bed, where Jackie rather forcibly prevented him from being in the room while she changed her into some pyjamas and put her into bed.

When Jackie came out, she saw that he was sat back down, a sad smile on his face, the cup of tea held in his lap, and his eyes drooping closed. She tried to stay quiet, thinking he was going to sleep, when he asked, "Jackie, do you know anything about who her birth parents are?"

She shook her head. "No, Pete… Pete was the one who knew, and kept it secret. If I knew, Rose would have known before she even met you, Doctor."

He nodded, and asked, "Why was it such a big secret? I keep getting the feeling that it's a pretty big secret, bigger than the secret should be to other kids. I only know she's adopted because she slipped up and almost said the full word. She caught herself but just a syllable too late. Don't think she would have told me on her own, but she doesn't act ashamed of it or anything like that."

Jackie sighed and sat across from him.

She began, "All I know is that her birth parents wanted her to have a locket. We tried to open it every so often, Rose even asked for a watch maker to try, it was like it was welded shut or something."

"Anything else?"

"Why? Whats so important that you know this?"

He sighed, and had to explain it for her, "You know what caused me to regenerate into the man you see before you? I absorbed the Time Vortex, and I'm a member of the only race that could ever do so without _permanent_ death. If I was on my last body, then I wouldn't have survived. I only held it for 30 seconds. In that time my mind had been burnt by all that power, every cell of my body decaying inside-out. A Death which Rose by rights should have experienced _before_ I got to pull it out of her. She absorbed it before me, that's what she used to get me back. She used the power to take herself and the TARDIS forward in time to just before the Daleks were about to kill me for good, she then used that power to send throughout time and space, little messages to lead herself to doing exactly that, two words that I had learned to dread before then. 'Bad Wolf'. I'm sure she-"

"BAD WOLF?" Jackie asked, going pale.

Her response was unexpected.

"Jackie, have you heard that phrase before?"

She nodded. "I never knew where Pete got the tale from, but every night until he died, he would sing her to sleep with this strange tale of a bad wolf."

He frowned. "Really? Not just a childrens fairytale or something like Little Red Riding hood - that has a Wolf that's bad."

"No, 'Bad Wolf' as in 'The Bad Wolf'. The Bad Wolf that saw time and space."

He sat up straight. "Jackie, tell me more."

"If you're… all her life, she's seen various things with the moniker, 'Bad Wolf'. When she was a teenager, in a rebelious stage, she was part of a group who, when talking about her, always called her 'Bad Wolf'."

"'I am the Bad Wolf, I create myself. I take the words, I scatter them, through time and space. A message to lead myself here.'" He muttered.

"What?"

"When she took the Vortex in, that's what she said. She didn't just scatter the words through her travels with me, but before that. But why even further back?"

"She saw the message all those times before she created the message?" Jackie offered.

"No, there's something else. Time doesn't work quite like that."

"How would you know?"

"My race were called the Time Lords for a good reason, Jackie."

"Oh. Maybe it'll come to you after you've had some rest, you look shattered."

He smiled faintly and sat back down, "Thank you. Don't need as much sleep as humans but, things just caught up with me I guess."

"You can use the spare bedroom, same one as before."

"Thanks Jackie. Never thought you'd be civil like this." He mused. "Ever so grateful for the change." He added.

"Despite the fact that she took herself back to your side, you did send her back to me, and you don't seem to mind coming back for little visits, so for her sake. Now go, get some sleep. I might be asleep when you get up, if so, get whatever you want for breakfast from the fridge. The Prime Minister you two know has been ever so good for this country, my fridge has never gotten to be so full…" she trailed off as she left him to it.

--

When he woke up, it was night and there was a note on his bedside table from Rose, telling him that she was in the TARDIS library.

He soon stood at the door into it, watching as she read a book. He didn't know what book, all he saw was a book open in her hands, a big book too. But what interested him, was she occasionally looked at the shelves and grabbed another with her free hand, and put into into a trolley she was pushing, that was slowly getting fuller with other books.

When she stopped and sat down at a table, he made his approach.

"What's got you so interested in reading all of a sudden?" He asked.

And in near-perfect Gallifreyan she replied, "'It is a little known fact among the students of the Time Lord Academy that only one tenth of those who go for the TARDIS piloting exams actually do pass the space portion, and a tenth of those pass the time portion of the exams. Only those who passed both portions were allowed to pilot the TARDIS's, since even a small pilot error could strand a Time Lord centuries before or after their intended time destination. Even travel between locations without the temporal portion of piloting is difficult, since there is the whole of creation at that point in time to travel to. Even more difficult to master is flying a TARDIS through space, rather than dematerialising and rematerialising, since there are the obsticals between the start and end points of the journey.' Hey Doctor, I take it you didn't pass then?"

He chuckled, and instead of pointing out that she spoke Gallifreyan, although she probably wouldn't realise without it being pointed out, he instead replied, "No. Funny thing actually, because the other TARDIS's with only few exceptions, were all piloted by fully-qualified Time Lords."

"What's so funny about that? And come to think of it, if they don't let you pilot without passing the exams…"

"Oh, now that's the funny part." The Doctor explained. "I kind of… stole… the TARDIS."

"And she didn't get angry with you?"

"Who didn't get angry with me?"

"The TARDIS of course." She gave him a grin, and added, "How could you forget her like that? She's going to be mad for a week, you know. Last time I forgot her I couldn't find any clean clothes, and she wouldn't let me into the Wardrobe Room until I apologised."

The Doctor was crestfallen. "Sorry love, didn't think." He mumbled, and rubbed the shelf he was stood beside.

Rose smiled softly as she heard a low thrum in response. "Okay, a day then." She corrected.

"Anyway, what exactly are you reading?"

"Oh, found several books on Time Travel; paradoxes and the like, thought I should learn as much as I could after falling into a parallel world."

"What books? We never learned from any books for that part at the Academy."

She smiled. "You didn't read a lot when you were young did you?"

His self-depracating smile was all the answer she needed.

"The TARDIS has a whole section, and I'd swear it was like these books are written for humans. Read a history book on your people a few months back, so I know they weren't exactly fond of us, and Sarah Jane told me that you were the only Time Lord she encountered who treated her as a person."

--

Jack frowned as the computers reported rift activity near the outskirts of the city.

"Suzie, Tosh, Owen…" he began, and smiled at his team as they came in. "Looks like we're taking a bit of a field trip."

--

Rose smiled as the TARDIS landed in Cardiff.

"So come on, tell me, what we doing here?" The Doctor asked.

Rose shrugged as she put her coat on, and stepped out into the familiar sight of the bay area, and the Doctor followed.

"Just, something I used to do each year. Kind of missed last year's, idiot."

"Hey, Come on, I told you, it's pretty difficult to pilot the TARDIS through time."

Rose rolled her eyes but didn't say anything. Instead, she set off, and the Doctor dutifully followed, wondering what she was doing.

About half an hour later, he raised his eyebrows, because Rose had walked into a florist shop, whose owner recognised her immediately and got out an order.

"Sorry I-"

"No need, I saw the missing posters." The owner cut in, her welsh accent coming through softer than most welsh people's.

"Right." Rose smiled in thanks, and left the florist.

The Doctor asked after 5 minutes, "What's this about?"

Rose sighed. "When I was 8, my Mum brought us here to visit my Aunt Jen. I was left alone with her while my mum went to shopping… She had some of the best stories. She used to call us once a fortnight, and tell me a story over the phone. You'd have liked her, her stories were about heroes and demons from other planets." She looked shocked for a moment, before she whispered, "Now that I mention it - one of the monsters - she pretty much described a Dalek!"

"What happened to her?"

Rose closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, the Doctor's hearts ached for her. She looked haunted. "She had a heart-attack. I dialled 999 but I couldn't understand the operator. By the time my mum got back..."

Rose closed her eyes again, and this time, didn't open them for a full minute.

"She died, this day, but 11 years ago. Each year since I've spent a day, to come here and get her flowers and put them at her grave."

The Doctor saw this, as they entered a graveyard.

"Doctor, would you mind…?" Rose started, and he nodded and left her to it.

She watched him as he left, and he gave her her phone, "I'll be in the TARDIS, if you need me."

Once she lost sight of him, she proceeded to her aunt's grave.

Nearing, she noticed someone else there, a policewoman from the looks of things.

She silently added the flowers to the pile there already, and touched the name engraved on the gravestone.

_'Jeniffer Cooper, loving wife, aunt and sister'_

Rose looked up at the policewoman, who looked at her.

"I'm Gwen. You look familiar…" Gwen mused, before she realised, "You've visited every year…"

Rose nodded, and wiped her eyes of the tears that collected. She stood and held her hand out, and as Gwen shook it, she turned her head and asked, "You look familiar…"

Gwen smiled but shook her head, "Doubt you'd have seen me, I was always in a car and saw you as you left."

"How did you know Aunt Jen?" Rose asked.

Gwen raised an eyebrow, and replied, "She's my aunt too."

"We're cousins?"

Gwen shrugged. "Maybe, Aunt Jen married my Dad's brother."

"She was my mums' sister." Rose inserted.

Together, the two left to talk about their former favourite aunt.

--

"I loved her stories when i was younger," Gwen was saying. They had gone to a cafe, and had several cups of coffee.

"Me too, did she ever tell you about the robot in a shell with a plunger and whisk for arms?"

"Yes, I especially liked the part about the Professor." Gwen answered.

Rose raised her eyebrows, and added, "She never called him that when she told the story to me."

"Really?"

"Really. Ever wonder where she got her stories?"

"Not really. Why?"

"You might not believe me, but keep in mind - that space ship hovering over london. I've met Aliens."

Gwen raised her eyebrows. "I don't believe that. Besides, how could they be aliens? My boyfriend says it's like a sort of cyber terrorism."

"Your boyfriend's an idiot."

Gwen laughed. "You've met him then?"

Rose laughed too, and added, "So what was his explanation for Aliens in Downing Street, the big spaceship that hovered over london?"

"Psychotropic drugs in the water supply."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Yes, he really is an idiot. Do you know how hard it was for me to even get into the water treatment plants for London?"

"What?"

"Nevermind." Rose rolled her eyes.

"So what's your name?" Gwen asked.

Rose thougth for a moment, before she replied with a slight grin, "The Big Bad Wolf."

"Oh come on."

Rose shrugged, "Well I just told you that I once broke into the London water treatment plants, and you're a policewoman, I'm not exactly going to give my name away."

Gwen laughed, "As if. Family stick together, my mum always said."

Rose nodded. "So they do. Anyway, I must be off, exploring other worlds with my alien friend and all that."

Gwen raised her eyebrows again. "You can't be serious."

"And through time too. I think I might have met one of your ancestors, Gwen. You look like her. Gwyneth - never got her surname. Worked in a Funeral Parlour. Died there. I should tell you that story sometime." Rose said as she got up and paid for their drinks. "Next time I'm here on Earth, got your number afterall, yeah?"

Gwen smiled and nodded. "I'll see you then, Big Bad Wolf."

--

_**The Impossible Planet**_

Rose frowned as the TARDIS struggled to rematerialize and stabilise into the universe.

"Huh..." the Doctor muttered, and once they stepped out, he rubbed the side of the door. "She's a bit queezy, like she didn't want to land."

"Well, if you think that it's gonna be trouble, we could always go somewhere else…"

The Doctor and Rose split into laughs at the mere thought, and the Doctor looked around once he got control. "I think… We've landed inside a cupboard. Here we go."

The Doctor opened a door, and they both heard a computer say, "Open door, 15."

"Some sort of Base. Moon-base, E-base, Space-base. They build these things like a kit."

"Glad we're indoors." Rose muttered, and got a flash of swirling gasses.

"Open Door, 16." The Doctor opened, and Rose followed him.

"Human designers, you've got a thing about kits. This place was put together like a flat-pack wardrobe, only bigger."

"What, made by a space version of Ikea?"

"Maybe, well, as long as they didn't forget the all important last screw." The Doctor replied.

As they neared another door, he added, "And put together easier."

"Open Door, 17."

He looked into the next room, and smiled. "Oh, it's a Sanctuary Base."

"Close Door, 17."

"Like, Deep space exploration. We've gone way out. And listen to that-" Rose listened, and the low humming they had heard ever since stepping out was clearer slightly. "-Underneath, someone's drilling."

Rose got a sudden urge to look at something on the wall, and spoke, "Welcome to Hell."

"Oh It's not that bad."

"No - look."

Rose felt chills as she tried to read the inscriptions below it, and felt the Doctor freeze too.

"Hold on, what does that say?" He muttered, and ran over to the wall.

"Weird, It won't translate." He added.

"But I thought you and the TARDIS translated everything, writing aswell. Should be in English."

"Exactly, but if that's not working, means, this writing... is old. Very old. _Impossibly_ old."

The Doctor got up and went to the next door, and started to open it.

As he spoke, Rose looked at the writing, and she felt as though she should at the very least, recognise it. But she didn't.

"We've gone beyond the reach of the TARDIS' knowledge, which is not a good move."

"Open Door, 19."

The Doctor was shocked to see 3 unfamiliar aliens on the other side, standing with some sort of ball in one hand.

"Hello. Sorry, ahm, I was just saying, nice base."

"We must, feed." The middle one spoke, the ball lighting up as it did. The Doctor looked at it, and asked, "You gonna what?"

"We must, feed. You."

--

"But that field would take… Phenominal amounts of power, not just big but off the scale. Can I?" The Doctor pointed to the calculator.

Rose went off, and found one too.

After a bare minute, the Doctor began, "D'you see, to generate tat gravity field and the funnel, you'd need a power source-"

"Hold on, Doctor." Rose inserted, and the Doctor saw she was whirling away on a calculator too. "Almost... Ah. There we go. You'd need a power source with an inverted self-extrapolating reflex of 6 to the power of 6 every 6 seconds."

"Which is impossible." The Doctor added, but he was looking at Rose with awe.

"It took us 2 years to work that out." Zach inserted.

"Well… We're very good." The Doctor replied with a wink to Rose.

--

"Just a thought, Rose." The Doctor began.

"Yes, you would have to get a mortgage." Rose joked.

"Not that. Before, you worked that out nearly as fast as I did."

Rose rolled her eyes, and inserted, "Okay, I'll admit. I cheated a little."

"What?"

"I saw some of the calculations you were doing."

"What?"

"Always was good with Numbers, but it'd taken me a day to do those calculations."

"What?"

"Whats with you saying that all the time?"

The Doctor didn't say anything, flustered. Well, more like he didn't say anything for a minute.

"You cheated?"

"Hey I wanted to look smart too." Rose defended.

--

_**"The Satan Pit"**_

Rose looked around, wondering why the lights were going out when the terminal she was at activated, and she saw the numerous ood on the screen. "This is the Darkness, This is _my_ domain. You little things that live in the light, clinging to your feeble suns, which die in the end."

"That's not the Ood." Zachary told them. "Someone's talking through them."

"Only the Darkness remains."

"This is Captain Zachary Crossflane of Sanctuary Base 6 Representing the Torchwood Archive. You will identify yourself."

"You know my name."

"What do you want?"

"You will die here. All of you. This planet is your grave."

The Doctor came on the comm and asked, "If you are the beast, answer me this. Which one? Hm? Cause the Universe has been busy since you've been gone. There's more religions than there are planets in the Sky. The Arkavets, Orkology, Christianity, Pash Pash, New Judaism, San Clah, Church of the tin Vagabond, which devil are you?"

"_All of them_."

"What, then you're the… Truth behind the Myth?"

The voice sounded curious, "This one knows me, as I know him. The Killer, of his own kind."

The Doctor sounded a tad pissed off, as he shortly asked, "How did you end up on this rock?"

"The Disciples of the Light rose up against me and chained me in the Pit for all eternity."

"When was this?"

"Before Time."

"What does that mean?"

"Before _Time_."

"What does 'Before Time' mean?"

"Before Time, and Light and Space and Matter. Before the Cataclysm, before _this_ universe was created."

"That's impossible. No life could have existed back then.

"Is that, Your religion?"

"It's… a belief."

"You know nothing. All of you. So Small. The Captain, so scared of command. The Soldier, haunted by the eyes of his wife. The Scientist, still running from Daddy. The little boy who lied. The virgin. And the Lonely Girl, so very far away from home. The Valiant child, who will loose everything in battle so very soon."

"Doctor, what does that mean?" Rose asked.

"Rose, don't listen." came the soft reply.

"What does it mean?"

"You will die, and I will LIVE!"

--

"Doctor, Ida, Can you hear me?"

"He's gone."

Rose froze. She looked at some alien writing, and she could still read it, so she knew. "What do you mean he's gone?"

"He fell, into the pit. And I don't know how deep it is, miles, miles and miles."

"What do you mean he fell?"

"Well, I couldn't stop him." There was a long pause. "He said your name, wanted to me to tell you something, but he stopped. Said you know already."

Rose closed her eyes. However they were going to get out of this, she couldn't see. All she did was that the TARDIS was still around translating, and the Doctor was still alive, since she still saw things in engish.

--

She watched, as the planet disappeared from the monitors.

"The Planets' gone. I'm sorry."

She closed her eyes and searched her mind for the connection. It blinked out of existence for a fraction of a second. Just only a fraction. When it came back, she almost smiled in contentment, she heard the TARDIS assuring her somehow, She'll be back.

"First human beings to fall inside a black hole. How about that? History." Zachary joked.

"It'll be fine." She whispered back, and she caught a flash of the TARDIS approaching the ship.

And she really did smile when the shaking ceased.

And then they all were pushed to the side. "We're… turning."

"It's the Doctor." She told them, and her heart soared.

"Sorry about the Hijack Captain," His insufferable cheer-in-the-face-of-danger came on the speakers, "This is the good ship TARDIS. Now first things first, you got a Rose Tyler on board?"

"Never had a doubt." Rose cheered. "I see she found you down there then!"

"What do you mean? I found her!"

"As if, Tell him, TARDIS!"

"OWW! Oi what's that fo-OW? Okay okay she found me!"

Rose smiled with absolute joy and ignored the confused looks on Zachary and Danny's faces.

"I take it she's towing us?" She asked.

"Yep. Gravity Shmavity, my people practically invented black-holes. Well… infact, they did. In a couple of minutes we'll be nice and safe. Oh and Captain, can we do a swap? Say, You give me Rose Tyler, I give you Ida Scott? How about that?"

"What she didn't die from boredom?!" Rose joked.

"Oi!" came the sarcastic reply.

"Right, Clear space, mind if we do that swap now? The TARDIS is missing a certain person."

"And What about a certain person with a Binary Cardio-Vascular system?" Rose asked.

"He might be too."

--

Rose hugged the life out of him, and he did the same. After a minute, They let go and the Doctor commed the other ship.

"Zach? We'll be off now. Have a good trip home. And the next time you get curious about something-Uh… What's the point, you'll just go _blundering_ in. The _human_ race."

"But, Doctor," Ida asked, "What did you find down there? That creature, what was it?"

"I dunno, never did decypher that writing. But that's good. Day I know everything, I may aswell just stop." The Doctor looked at Rose, and she knew what he thought, that he hoped that day would come when she was around.

"What do you think it was?" Rose asked. The look on his face as he turned back to the TARDIS controls made her wonder, if he did actually find out.

"I think… we beat it, and that's good enough for me."

"It said I was going to loose everything in battle. Doctor, I-"

"It lied." The Doctor told her with a look, a hopeful one. "Right. Onwards, Upwards. Ida? See you again Maybe?"

"I hope so."

"And Thanks boys!" Rose called out. "For pulling me out when you did."

"No problem!" Danny replied, and Zachary added, "The Doctor would have kicked my arse if I hadn't!"

Ida interrupted. "Hang on, though Doctor. You never really said. You two, Who are you?"

"Oh…" The Doctor looked at Rose, and with a smile, answered, "The Stuff of Legend."

With that, the Doctor took the TARDIS away.

--

Onboard the ship though, Zachary regailed the two of tales from the Torchwood Archive. On the third day of this, he came to one that intrigued Ida Scott.

"It is said, her name burns in the Cascade of Medusa herself. The Lonely Goddess, cursed to travel through Time and Space alone. The old files of the Torchwood Institute referred to her as the Big Bad Wolf. It is also said that her heart burns fiercer than a sun, and her soul shines brighter than a thousand suns."

"I've heard of the Bad Wolf Corporation…" Ida started.

Zachary nodded. "It's not known how or why, but one of the longest lasting companies of this day, the only one to have started and stayed operational only on Earth, is one rumored to have been started by the Lonely Goddess."

"Oh come on, It's just some torchwood rumor taken out of proportion over the centuries."

Zachary shook his head. "I've seen the file on how the Institute was created. Queen Victoria was attacked and almost turned by 'The Bad Wolf'; a Werewolf."

They all shared looks.

"Wasn't that species of Light-based creatures made extinct around the 28th Century?" Danny asked.

"Well, Torchwood comes from even earlier, so it's not exactly impossible." Zachary inserted.

"How much earlier?"

"Come on, did you not learn your history? Queen Victoria?"

"Nope, not got a clue."

"19th Century."

"Really? That far back?"

--


	5. Doomsday

**Chapter 5**

**Season 2, "The Final Part"**

_**Army of Ghosts**_

_"Planet Earth. This is where I was born. And this is where I died. The First 19 years of my life, nothing happened, nothing extraordinary anyway._

_"And then, I met a man called the Doctor. A man who could change his face, and he took me away from home in his Magical machine. He showed me the whole of Time and Space. I thought it would never end - Me and Him, the Universe at our fingertips._

_"He asked me, 'How long are you going to stay with me?' and I told him, 'Forever'. I meant it. That's what I thought. But then came the Army of Ghosts, then came Torchwood and the War, And that's when it all ended. This is the story of how I died."_

--

Rose smiled as she and the Doctor stepped into her Mums' flat. "Mum, it's us! We're back!"

"Oh I dunno why you ever bother with that phone, you never use it!" She complained as she pulled Rose into a hug. Just when the Doctor thought he could get past though, Jackie released her and pulled the Doctor in for a hug. "Oh no you don't. Come here!"

Rose laughed as Jackie laid a kiss on the Doctor's lips.

"Oh you lovely big fella." Jackie told him, as the Doctor protested. "You're all mine, yes you are!" Jackie joked with a wink at Rose.

Once Jackie had finished, and Rose had put her backpack down, she showed her mum a trinket she had got her. "I got you this from the market on this, asteroid bazaar, it's made of Bazoolium. When it gets cold, it means is going to rain, and when it gets warm, it's gonna be sunny. Can use it to tell the weather."

Jackie didn't seem that enthused about it, as she went straight into something else. "I got a surprise for you anall."

"Oh… get a Bazoolium and she doesn't even say thanks."

"Guess who's coming to visit? He'll be here at ten past. Who'dya think it is?"

Rose just asked. "I dunno."

"It's your grandad. Grandad Prentis. He's on his way."

Jackie left, and Rose looked at the Doctor. "She's gone mad."

"Tell me something new."

"Grandad Prentis, that's her dad. But he died like, 10 years ago. Oh my god, she's lost it."

Rose went into the kitchen, and the Doctor followed, curious and dreading to think that another adventure awaited even on the little trips to Jackies.

"Mum, what you just said about grandad."

"Any second now."

"But, he passed away, his heart gave out. Do you remember that?"

"Course I do."

"Then how can he come back?"

"When don't you ask him yourself." She looked at her watch. "Ten past. Here he comes."

Rose shot back to the door, as she and the Doctor saw something… an apparition or other mysterious phenomenom in the shape of a humanoid figure. It walked to stand beside Jackie.

"Here we are then, Dad, say hello to Rose."

--

Rose entered the TARDIS and saw the Doctor hunched over something in the storage area below the TARDIS' control console.

"According to the Paper, they've elected a ghost as MP for Leeds. Now don't tell me you're going to sit back and do nothin."

The Doctor Stood up and got out, and as he did so, he jokingly and with a intentionally odd voice, spoke, "Who you gonna call."

Rose giggled out, "GHOST BUSTERS!"

"I Aint afraid of no ghosts!" The Doctor finished.

Rose followed him out into the park that the TARDIS was parked in, and watched him set up the scanner array he was going to use.

"When's the next shift?" He asked Jackie.

"Quarter to, Don't go causing trouble. What's that lot do?"

Rose answered for him as he got busy setting it up. "Triangulates their origin. I don't suppose it's the Gelth?"

"No, they came through just the rift in Cardiff. This lot are transposing themselves over the whole planet. Like tracing paper."

"You're always doing this, reducing it to science."

"Mum!" Rose inserted. "If there's one thing I've learned on my travels with the Doctor, it is that everything can be reduced to science."

"Oh alright." Jackie Relented. "But just think, all those people we've loved and lost coming back, don't you think it's beautiful?"

The Doctor, bless, had a sarcastic, accurate and yet wholly contradictory in both being appropriate and inappropriate response, "I think it's horrific." With that, he ran off into the TARDIS, Rose on his heels.

"Once the cones are activated-"

Rose interrupted, "If that line goes into the red, press this, and…?" she paused, searching.

The Doctor smiled, and answered, "If it doesn't stop, Setting 15B, hold against the port-" he handed her his Sonic Screwdriver, "8 seconds and stop. If it goes into the Blue."

Rose nodded, "Activate the deep scan. Gotcha. That one." She pointed to a switch.

"Close…" The Doctor Ummed.

"This one?" She asked, pointing to a device lower down.

"Nnnn… now you just killed us." the Doctor Joked.

"This one?" She asked with a smile.

"Yeah. Now, What we got, Two minutes to go?"

Rose watched as he went outside, and Jackie walked up to her.

"You even look like him now." Jackie murmured.

"Hmm? Oh, I suppose I do yeah." Rose answered distractedly.

"You've changed so much." Jackie spoke, but this time she actually sounded upset.

"For the better." She tried to assure her.

"I suppose."

Rose turned to her slightly, and explained, "Mum, I used to work in a shop, and the highlight of my life was member of a gang who all thought the epitome of life was drinking cider and breaking park benches."

"I worked in shops - okay the other bits yeah, but what's wrong with working in shops?"

"I… I didn't mean that."

"I know what you meant. What happens when I'm gone?"

She turned to Jackie fully, and said, "Don't talk like that, you've got a few decades in you yet."

"Only a few? No but Really, when I'm dead and buried, you won't have any reason to come back home. What happens then? D'you think you'll ever settle down?"

Rose turned back to the console, and explained, "The Doctor never will, so I can't. I'll just keep on travelling."

"And you'll keep on changing. And in 40 years time… 50…" Rose turned to Jackie, wondering if she'd drop the subject. "There'll be this woman, this strange woman, walking through the marketplace on some planet a billion miles from Earth. Only, she's not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She's not even human.

Rose turned back to the console again, and distracted herself with shouting out to the Doctor. "The Scanners' working, it says, Delta One Six!"

She closed her eyes, as she had a flash of herself in the TARDIS, Alone. Then it was gone.

--

Rose watched as the Doctor and her Mum were taken away. She wondered if she should take the TARDIS away, but thought, _Nah, that's one tactical advantage we should keep for later. What do you think, TARDIS?_

A soft hum came from the TARDIS in response, and Rose smiled. The Doctor had commented that she had been more accepting that the TARDIS was alive than any of his other companions - that is, he told her once she knew that there even _had_ been previous companions to the Doctor, and met Sarah Jane - which made her wonder if the TARDIS had accepted her better because of this. Rose had felt closer to it - no. To _her_, after she looked into her heart. Sarah Jane had taken the mickey of the Doctor for stroking parts of the TARDIS, but she did it too. Which she was doing.

_He won't be held for long. He's the Unstoppable Force, and he's got an Immovable object on his side, my blue friend._

The TARDIS' response came in the form of the central glass piece moving up and down rapidly, and the humming throbbed a bit too, like it was giggling. Rose activated the monitor, and saw that her comment was only in Metaphor - Torchwood had just put the TARDIS onto the back of a truck.

_Okay, not __**literally**__ immovable._

She waited until the TARDIS was placed back down, and she had a second thought.

_Think he'll be okay if I borrow his psychic paper? How about his Sonic Screwdriver?_

She took both, and with a smile, left the TARDIS.

--

_Jackpot._ She thought, as she entered the room that had been mysteriously labelled, 'Sphere Room'.

And she stared at the reason for the room's name. A million images burned in her mind, too many for her to pick one and comprehend it.

"Can I help you?" Someone asked.

"I was just… Sorry." She looked at him. "I'm new here. What… is that? Recovered from the… Sycorax ship or something?"

The guy chuckled shortly. "If only. What we recovered from that ship isn't even half of what we already have. No, this came through the- Wait, can I see your clearance?"

Rose nodded, and pulled out the Psychic Paper, and showed it to the guy.

"Interesting. If you really are new to Torchwood, you'd know that all personnel get basic psychic training. This paper is blank."

Rose smiled. "Nice try though. Trish bet me it wouldn't work."

The guy just raised his eyebrow at her, and she added, "So this great big sphere thing, it…" she got a flash, and smiled and turned to it. "You can see it, but there's nothing there. Its just one big nothing. No mass, atomic weight, EM field, nothing. except light bouncing off creating the image."

Rose pulled out the Sonic Screwdriver, and began doing something that completely confused the guy. "Some kind of… Can't be…"

"What?"

"That's a void ship." She finished.

The guy stared at her for a minute before he spoke. "You're one of the Doctor's companions."

"Oops." She winced, but smiled slightly when she saw Mickey behind the guy wink at her.

--

Rose sighed as the Rajesh bloke told Yvon about her. She had a feeling, so hadn't given her name.

"She one of yours?" A woman asked - Yvon, Rose guessed.

"Never seen her in my life." She heard the Doctor reply.

"Good. Then we can have her shot."

Rose piped up, "Won't work, Yvon was it? Got more lives than a Cat, me."

"Alien then?"

Rose shrugged. "What can I say, my Mum always joked that I wasn't human. Never thought she'd have been telling the truth."

"She got in, and had this, Ma'am." Rajesh inserted and showed a Sonic Screwdriver.

Yvon just looked at the Doctor.

"Oh alright, it was worth a try. That's… Rose Tyler. This is her Mum, she kind of got pulled along on this adventure."

"More like you kidnapped me."

"I didn't know you were in the TARDIS when I brought her here!" The Doctor argued back.

"Doctor, Mum! Now is not the Time!" Rose inserted.

"Please, when you write my autobiography, don't tell people I travelled through space and time with her mother?"

"Thanks."

Rose just smiled.

As Yvon seemed to get distracted by something, the Doctor asked, "Where'd you get a Sonic Screwdriver anyway?"

"It's yours. You left it in the TARDIS."

"I've got mine right here." The Doctor countered, and showed her his.

"Oh."

"Anyway what would you need it for?"

"Well, I discovered this, Void ship."

"Rajesh was it? thought you'd have kept that from non-Torchwood folk."

Rajesh looked between them, and inserted, "Actually, she just, clicked that, sonic screwdriver? and somehow knew what it was."

Rose looked around at the Doctor's looks, before he got distracted also by something.

--

Rose shuddered as the power increased, and the Sphere began to _exist_. But not from that. Her flashes had come back again. There were so many, that she collapsed to her knees and almost cried out in pain.

She didn't even look up when it opened.

"Hold on," Mickey began, "That's not the Cybermen."

"LOCATION, EARTH. LIFE FORMS DETECTED! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

She answered, "They're the Daleks."

"EXTERMINATE!!!"

--

_**Doomsday**_

_"My name is Rose Tyler. And this is the story of Torchwood. The last Story I'll ever tell. The Cybermen from Pete's world came through in force, and had practically won dominance over the world. But another force had come through - the Daleks… The Doctor's greatest and worst enemy._

_"This is the Story of how I died."_

--

"EXTERMINATE!" The Black one shouted, and Rose had had enough.

"DALEKS!" She shouted. "You are called DALEKS."

The 4 seemed to be staring at her.

Rose stepped closer to the black one, and she had a flash of it's name in her mind. "I know your name. Think about it, How can I know that? A Human, who knows about the Daleks. And Not just that, but the Timewar, and of the… _Cult of Skarro_."

"YOU KNOW OF US?"

"If you want to know how, keep us alive, that's all I'm asking."

Rose grinned as the Dalek accepted it for the time being.

She shared a look with Mickey, and as she turned back, Mickey could have sworn her eyes glowed for a split second.

--

Rose grinned as the Dalek turned to her. "THE FEMALES' HEART RATES INCREASES!"

She would have frowned at the plural, but Mickey had to joke, "Yeah, tell me about it."

"IDENTIFY HIM!"

"Alright, if you really want to know. That's the Doctor."

Rose took pleasure in saying that, as the four Daleks backed off.

"Five Million Cybermen, easy. One Doctor. Now you're scared."

She had a thought. _But not nearly as much as you will be of me when I'm through with you._

--

"You're the bravest man I've ever met." Rose told him.

"What about the Doctor?"

"Oh alright, bravest human." She corrected.

"Well, I can't think what the Daleks need with me, I'm nothing to them."

"You could be, Whatever's inside that Genesis Ark is waking up. I've seen this happen before, sort of. First time I saw a Dalek, it was broken and dying. Then I touched its shell, moment I did that, I brought it back to life. You see, when you travel in time, you soak up all this background radiation. It's very specific, and only those who travel through time have it. It's harmless, just there. But in the Time War, the Daleks evolved, so they could, harvest this radiation to use as a power supply. But if the Daleks have got something inside that and it needs waking up,"

"They'll need you."

"You've travelled in time, either one of us would do." She silently added, _It would be a much worse idea if I touch it._

"But why would they build something that they can't open themselves?"

"THE TECHNOLOGY IS STOLEN." The black Dalek answered. "THE ARK IS NOT OF DALEK DESIGN."

Rose looked at it, then asked, "Then who built it? The Time Lords?"

"YOU ARE CORRECT. THIS IS ALL THAT SURVIVES OF THEIR HOMEWORLD."

"What's inside?"

"THE FUTURE."

--

After what felt like half an hour, the black Dalek approached her. "YOUR HAND PRINT WILL OPEN THE ARK."

"Well tough, cuz I'm not doing it."

"OBEY, OR THE MALE WILL DIE."

She shrugged and stepped toward it.

"Rose, Don't."

"PLACE YOUR HAND UPON THE CASKET."

"ALRIGHT!" Rose shouted at it, "you're gonna kill us anyway, so what the hell?"

She stopped a foot from it, and turned to the Dalek, and asked, "If you… escaped the Time War. Don't you want to know what happened?"

"PLACE YOUR HAND-"

"What happened to the Emporer?"

"THE EMPORER SURVIVED?"

Rose looked up as if trying to remember, but then looked it back in the eyestalk, and took a step closer. "Till he met me."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!"

"If these are gonna be my last words, then you're gonna listen. I met the emporer, and his fleet of vessels filled with millions of Daleks."

"HOW DID YOU SURVIVE?!"

"I took the Time Vortex, and rendered him and every stinking last Dalek there unto dust. Do you get that? The god of all Daleks, and I destroyed him. HA!"

Mickey looked scared, as he noticed that Rose had begun to glow slightly as she spoke.

"YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

"Oh now Hold on a minute!" Came a voice from the door, and Mickey turned to it as he noticed the glow faded completely from Rose.

"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR!"

"SENSORS REPORT HE IS UNARMED."

"That's me, always."

"THEN YOU ARE POWERLESS."

"Not me, Never." The Doctor looked at Rose with a proud smile. "How are you?"

"Oh, same old. You know, anger one Dalek anger them all."

He winked at her and looked at Mickey. "And Mickety Mick Mickey. Nice to see ya."

"And you boss."

"SOCIAL INTERACTION WILL CEASE."

"HOW DID YOU SURVIVE THE TIME WAR?"

"By fighting. On the front line. I was there at the fall of Arcadia. Someday I might even come to terms with that."

The Doctor looked around as he continued, "But you lot, you run away!"

"WE HAD TO SURVIVE."

"The last four Daleks in existence. So what's so special about you?"

"Doctor, they have names… I think… they're the Cult of Skarro."

"SHE KNOWS US, BUT SHE IS NOT TIME LORD."

"Names? So come on then, who's who?"

"I AM DALEK THEY." One of the 3 brown ones spoke.

"DALEK JAST" came a higher pitch one.

"DALEK KHAN" came the lowest pitch one.

"DALEK SEK." The Black one finished.

"I thought you were just a legend." The Doctor told them idly. For mickey, he added, "A secret order, above and beyond the Emporer himself. "Their job was to imagine. Learn how their enemies think. They even had names. All to find new ways of Killing."

"But that thing, they said it was yours - I mean, Time lords. They built it. What does it do?" Mickey asked.

--

She was horrified as she realised what the Daleks had meant by "Time Lord Science."

As the Ark was taken up to hover a hundred feet above the ground, she whispered to him.

"It's bigger on the inside. Time Lord Science."

The Doctor looked at her in shock, then watched as she was proven right.

"How many are there?"

"Millions." Rose and the Doctor answered.

"I'm sorry." Pete began as he backed away from the window. "This worlds' gonna crash and burn, But we're out of here. We're going home. Jacks' take this." Pete passed a spare dimension shifter to her. "You're coming with us."

"But they're destroying the city."

"I'd forgotten you could argue." Pete muttered as he put the device over her head to hang from her neck. "It's not just the city, it's the whole world. But there's another world, just waiting for you Jacks. And it's safe. As long as the Doctor closes the breach. Doctor?"

"Oh, I'm ready." The Doctor said with a grin.

Rose felt a forboding, and suddenly she had a specific flash of images. She felt as though the TARDIS was telling her something. She looked at her hand as it glowed slightly, triggered by a thought.

"We've got the equipment right here." The Doctor began, and inserted, "Thank you Torchwood. Slam it down and close of both universes."

"But we can't just leave, what about the Daleks?" Mickey asked. "And the Cybermen?"

"They're part of the Problem, and part of the Solution." Rose and the Doctor answered, and grinned at each other.

"Oh Yes." The Doctor completed. "Well, Isn't anyone going to ask, what's with the glasses?"

Rose rolled her eyes at him, implying the question.

"I can See. That's what. Because we've got the two universes."

"But inbetween the universes we've got the Void." Rose added.

"That's how the Cybermen came through to get here,"

"And the Daleks were hiding in it, and when they came through they caused the breach."

"And you lot, one world to another, Via the Void. Oh I like that. 'Via the Void'."

Rose took the proferred glasses, and looked at the Doctor, and passed it to Mickey, who did the same.

"I've been through it. Do'you see?"

"What is it?" Mickey asked.

"Void Stuff." The Doctor answered.

"Like time travel radiation." Rose added.

"And the only one who hasn't been through the void… Jackie. First time she's looked normal in her life."

"OI!"

"Now the Daleks lived inside the void, they're bristling with it. Cybermen, all of them. I just open the void, but in reverse. The void stuff gets sucked back in - the Cybermen through the cracks they came through, and the Daleks back into here." The Doctor tapped the wall with his knuckle.

"Sorry, what's the void?" Mickey asked.

"The dead space. Some people call it Hell."

Rose had to say, "But it's like you said, we've all got void stuff. Me too, because we went to that parallel world. We're all contaminated, we'll get pulled in."

The Doctor stepped up to her, and told her straight, although she could see the small changes in his expression that told that he didn't want her to, "that's why you've gotta go. Back to Pete's world. You'll be safe there. But once it's closed, it's closed for good. The breach is soaked in Void stuff, so in the end it'll collapse upon itself, and that's it. Kaput."

"But you'll stay on this side."

"You'll get pulled in." Mickey added.

"That's why, I got these." the Doctor finished, and ran over to and picked up the weight lifter devices. "I just got to hold on tight, been doing it all my life."

Rose looked at him, and said, "I'm supposed to go."

"Yeah." The Doctor replied, and then began his thing. Whenever he's got to put up with loss in the middle of a situation, he'd distract himself to the point of rudeness with fixing the situation.

"To another world and then it gets sealed off."

"Yeah."

"Forever." She saw him not answer. If she didn't know him anybetter, she'd not have noticed the slight change in his eyes. "That's not gonna happen." She closed her eyes and focused her thoughts. A stream of images came again, and she knew it was close. Had her eyes been open, they'd have all seen her eyes glow for a second.

She barely paid attention to her Mum and Pete argue about it.

"-I'm not leaving her!"

Rose spun her mum around, and told her straight, "You've got to. You stay here and you'll be pulled in. Mum, I've had a life with you, for 19 years. But then I met the Doctor. And all the things I've seen him do for me, for you, for all of us; for the whole, stupid, planet. He does it alone, Mum. But not any more. Because now, he's got me."

She stopped when she noticed the Doctor put something over her head, and suddenly, a roar in her ears and then pain.

--

She barely noticed Pete pull the device from her.

"Rose? ROSE what's wrong?"

Rose looked up at her, and the sight of her shocked Jackie and Pete.

Her scream rang with a double tone to it, filled with pain from suddenly being cut off from something, "NO!"

She backed away from them all. "I'm Not leaving him! He's not doing that to me _again!_"

With that, she held out a hand outstretched, and Pete found the device he had taken from her fly back into her hand, and she disappeared.

--

She reappeared in Torchwood, and she held back the glow from being visible.

"I said forever, and I meant it." She told him forcibly when he realised she was there. She saw that a tear had begun to well in the eye turned to her.

"Once the breach collapses, that's it! You will never be able to see her again, your own mother!"

Rose stared him in the eye, and told him, "I made my choice a long time ago, and I'm never gonna leave you. Time and Space couldn't seperate me from you, the Void aint gonna win either."

The Doctor gulped at the fierceness in her eyes, before he nodded, and pulled her into a hug.

When he stepped back, she said, "Now come on, there's two levers. You didn't really think you'd get both on your own."

The Doctor smiled faintly, and as they got to work, he muttered, "I was going to damn well try, just so you'd be safe."

"Levers Operational." The computer voice announced.

Rose saw the grin on the Doctor's face and commented, "That's more like it, bit of a smile. The Ole Team."

"Hope and glory, Matt of Jeff, Shiver and Shake."

"Which ones' shiver?"

"Oh I'm shake."

Rose took the right and the Doctor took the left.

"Alright, when it starts just hold on tight. It shouldn't be too bad for us, but the Daleks and Cybermen are steeped in Void Stuff. You ready?"

"Yeah, but so are they." Rose pointed with her head at the Daleks outside the window as she grabbed the lever.

"Lets do it!"

Rose pushed her lever all the way, locked it and ran for the weight lifter device, which had been attached to the wall and locked, essentially becoming something she could hold on too that would take all the load and pressure of her being pulled.

After a minute, Rose' lever was struck by a Dalek, causing it to unlock.

Through the haze of all the Daleks being pulled through, the Doctor didn't see her just point her palm at it, her eyes glow and that hand glow, and the handle pull back into place and lock.

Because as soon as that happened, his own was hit.

"OFFLINE."

The Doctor pulled his back, but he lost his grip around the weight lifter device, and as the number of Daleks being pulled in a second descreased, the more he himself was being lifted off the floor, the breach pulling at him stronger and stronger.

"HOLD ON!" Rose screamed, and tried to wrap him with her thoughts.

But flashes of images ran through her mind again. Images unleashed by her use of something that had lived within her ever since she looked into the Heart of the TARDIS.

Then after the Daleks had stopped coming, Rose knew it was seconds away from closing.

"HOLD ON TIGHT IT'S ALMOST DONE!" She screamed at him.

Unfortunately, he slipped.

She blinked though when familiar person appeared near the wall and had grabbed onto him, and then disappeared _with_ the Doctor.

She blinked again, the after image of her Mum holding the Doctor tight, a dimension shifter hung around her neck and one in her hand, fading quickly.

And then the Breach was gone, and she felt… empty.

"No." she whispered, and walked slowly to the wall.

"No." She spoke, 5 feet from the wall.

"NO." She said, much stronger, 3 feet from the wall.

"NO!" she screamed, hand on the wall.

She lost control.

She kicked, screamed and punched the wall, tears flowing freely from her eyes.

A minute.

Two.

Five.

Ten, and then she felt a prod on her mind. She stopped and put her head against the wall.

"Doctor." She whispered, and she swore she heard the answering call from him.

This time she lost control, instead of violence, she just sank down the wall, and cried much more.

She didn't move until familiar hands lifted her chin.

--


	6. Day I Died

**Authors Note:** You really didn't think I'd leave it there? Anyway, This is, pretty much the first 23 mins of 'The Runaway Bride' - Posting it as a teaser on the end of this, because I want the whole thing to be one chapter, and I will post it on Christmas Day - it being a 'Christmas Special'. ;) . It's unedited, so the proper one should be worth a read when it goes up for the expanded bits (I dislike large amounts of just speech.) And if any of you didn't catch it, the final scene in this teaser is meant to be The Wolf's version of Torchwood episode 'Everything Changes'. Wondering if any of you have ideas for Rose' journeying alone. (I'm adapting it a little so that from here on, the christmasses are sort of synchronised with Rose' personal timeline, so they're roughly a year apart. a bit less between the Sycorax and this christmas special but yeah. Anyway, do I look bovvad? hehe.

And yes I know that's 2 chapters on-the-trot that I posted AFTER marking the story as Complete. Meh. Plans change. And would reviewers please, when they do at least have an account, log in when giving reviews so I can reply? yes evita, I'm looking at you.

**Authors Note 2: EDITED - **Luke isn't with Sarah Jane until a few months later or so. At the end I kept Luke in since the Turn Left episode, while Donna speaks to her mum, you can hear the reporter say, "her son, Luke-" "-in the hospital, along with his teenage friends, Maria Jackson and Clyde Langer-"

Might include Maria during one of Rose' trips to see Sarah Jane.

**

* * *

Chapter 6**

**Season 2, "The Day I Died"**

_**Doomsday**_

_"Planet Earth. This is where I was born. And this is where I died. The First 19 years of my life, nothing happened, nothing extraordinary anyway._

_"And then, I met a man called the Doctor. A man who could change his face, and he took me away from home in his Magical machine. He showed me the whole of Time and Space. I thought it would never end - Me and Him, the Universe at our fingertips._

_"He asked me, 'How long are you going to stay with me?' and I told him, 'Forever'. I meant it. That's what I thought. But then came the Army of Ghosts, then came Torchwood and the War, And that's when it all ended._

_"This is the story of Torchwood, The last Story I, Rose Tyler, will ever tell._

_"This is the Story of how I died."_

--

He slipped.

She blinked though when a familiar person appeared near the wall and had grabbed onto him, and then disappeared _with_ the Doctor.

She blinked again, the after image of her Mum holding the Doctor tight, a dimension shifter hung around her neck and one in her hand, fading quickly.

And then the Breach was gone, and she felt… empty.

"No." she whispered, and walked slowly to the wall.

"No." She spoke, 5 feet from the wall.

"NO." She said, much stronger, 3 feet from the wall.

"NO!" she screamed, hand on the wall.

She lost control.

She kicked, screamed and punched the wall, tears flowing freely from her eyes.

A minute.

Two.

Five.

Ten, and then she felt a prod on her mind. She stopped and put her head against the wall.

"Doctor." She whispered, and she swore she heard the answering call from him.

This time she lost control, instead of violence, she just sank down the wall, and cried much more.

She didn't move until familiar hands lifted her chin.

--

He ran. He had heard they were here, and he thought he was almost too late. He had seen the Daleks, those dreaded Daleks, hurtle through the air into the near-top floor of the Canary Wharf building.

When he hit the 10th floor below it, he heard a scream of pain, of loss. A familiar scream.

When he hit the 2nd floor below it, he heard the crying.

When he entered the room, his heart stopped.

There alone, sat Rose Tyler, her back against the wall, head laid on her hands, propped up by her knees.

He knew.

He was too late.

But at least someone he knew had made it through, as he slowly approached her.

He lifted his chin up, and he barely caught the sight of golden irises widen in recognition before he was engulfed in a fierce hug.

"Rose?" He asked simply.

"He's gone."

"Gone?" he choked out.

"The breach was sucking him into the void."

He froze completely, and he asked, "He's dead?"

She shook her head but didn't let go to explain. "Lost." Was all he got out of her.

For the next hour, she didn't say a word, didn't make a sound, she just sat there in his Land Rover, while he dealt with people, personally, on the phone.

If she had paid attention, she'd have realised who he had worked for, but she wasn't, so she didn't.

Finally, he asked her, "Rose, the CCTV showed that your mother was here too."

She looked at him in confusion, and he explained, "I er, Kind of visited you when you were younger, kept an eye out."

She laughed sadly. "Lost."

"I saw Mickey too."

"Lost." She answered.

"Rose?" He finally asked. "What do you mean, Lost?"

She chuckled, but the laughter was not happy laughter. "Mickey left for another world months ago. A Parallel Earth, where his Gran was alive. Where my Dad was alive, but I wasn't. Where the Cybermen were made."

Slowly, Rose explained to him what had happened then, and then she explained what happened here.

"And then…" She stopped, unable to say it.

"He fell at the Breach." He replied simply.

She laughed again, a little feeling was in it this time, making him wonder, but she didn't let him wonder for too long.

"I guess Mum liked him better than I thought. Or she thought She was going to catch me. I don't know. But she came through, caught him, and took him back to that world before the void could suck them both in."

"So he's alive?"

"Trapped. In a Parallel Dimension. The roads between ours and that one collapsed with the breach." She chuckled humorlessly.

"What's so funny?" He had to ask.

"Nothing, it's just… the Doctor thought I wouldn't survive this, or something. So he sent me to it, and he was going to do it all alone. But I wouldn't let him. And instead, he's trapped." She laughed out loud. "And I don't know what to do. My Mum's gone, so I can't go back to her. Mickey's with her… and now the Doctor too!" Her laughter fell back into crying. "What is left for me? I've lost everything, Jack. He was everything to me and now he's lost."

Captain Jack Harkness merely pulled her into a hug, and shushed her, calming her down. She fell asleep in his arms, not noticing that he too had shed tears.

--

She woke in a small room, a bedroom by the looks of things. Only there wasn't a door - the only entrance seemed to be a ladder through a hole in the roof. When she had gotten decent and climbed out, she spotted Jack sat at a desk, clutching onto something tightly.

"Jack?" She asked, making him jump.

He turned to her and asked, "How are you feeling?"

She shrugged, but asked, "Where are we?"

"Cardiff." He answered simply, and added, "I've had the TARDIS moved to a secure location, only you and I have access. I tried my Key, but it wasn't working…"

Rose sighed, and asked, "Where are we?" again.

"Torchwood 3." Jack replied.

She stiffened, but Jack inserted, "It's not what you think. This is just a small operation, keep an eye on the Rift here."

"How did you end up here? The Do- He said that you were going to be busy rebuilding 200,100 Earth."

Jack smiled sadly, and explained, "There were certain... circumstances that required my chasing him through time." He tapped his wrist device, "I used my little Vortex Manipulator to get here, but I was a little off. Had to live through two world wars and wait for the right him, if you catch my rift."

"Your puns suck." She commented, but the light-heartedness of the comment hadn't made it into neither her voice nor expression. Then his words dawned on her. "Two World Wars? You don't look a day older than when I last saw you on the Game station."

"Well, perhaps you can explain. One minute, I was facing down a bunch of Daleks and I swore I got hit by their extermination ray beams, Next I'm laid in front of piles of ash and dust, and I heard the TARDIS leave."

Rose looked around the room, but didn't answer. Her expression told him enough.

"You had something to do with that, right?"

Rose shrugged, but answered, "I kind of… looked into the Heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the Time Vortex to get back to you and th- Him. used it to wipe out the Dalek fleet, and I think, bring you back to life. Sorry."

Jack smiled and laughed at her 'apology'. "No need to apologize, in a way, you did me a favour. In fact, I'd wager you did me more of a favour than giving me a curse."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for one you just didn't make me able to live 2 centuries without aging." He gave a deprecating grin. "As much as I'd like to think it was just to preserve my good looks…"

"Not now, Jack." Rose complained tiredly.

"Alright. So anyway, I learned what was going on after the first few _attempts_ on my life."

"Attempts?"

"It was the 19th century - Nice job with Queen Victoria, By the By. Heard about that from a drunken soldier who was there at the Torchwood Estate - and no, that's not a coincidence."

Rose didn't say anything about it.

"Anyway, _Dame Rose Tyler_," Jack inserted with a grin that didn't reach his eyes, "Just after hearing about that, I get into this bar fight. No, I didn't start it, but I bloody well finished it. Key emphasis with literal meaning in the 'bloody'."

"What?"

"I died. And came back to life."

Rose shot up. "No wonder I feel odd looking at you." She mumbled.

"You sure that's not my good looks?" He asked, curious about her comment.

"Not now, Jack." She simply reiterated.

"Fine. So yeah, I find out I'm immortal. Or at least, age very very slowly."

"Does Torchwood know?" She asked.

"Whats left of it, you mean? No they don't. Some of my superiors did, but agreed that their top agent being a person born in the 51st century would be a bit weird for the others to know."

"On top of aliens, monsters and so forth?" Rose asked.

Jack just rolled his eyes and nodded.

"So what are you going to do now?" She asked.

"Well, Torchwood as it was yesterday wasn't exactly Pro-Doctor." He paused as he saw her wince at his name. "But I think, if I'm to rebuild it, I should do so but turn it into something he'd have been proud to be associated with."

Rose just looked at him for a moment, before she nodded. "You've got a plan. What about me?"

"You want a place here?" He asked in shock.

Rose shook her head, "I mean, You, Me, TARDIS…?"

Jack gave it a thought for a second, before he shook his head. "I wouldn't mind helping you learn the controls, but, I've got a team here, and probably going to get another member, a survivor from Torchwood 1 - Er, London. One of the lucky few. Ianto Jones."

Rose nodded, but closed her eyes, and sighed. "Won't need help to learn." She said after a minute. "I can already pilot her through Space, and I finally found the instructions for the Time part just last week. Might take the next few weeks though to learn before I try. Got a place for me to stay before then?"

Jack shook his head, but asked, "Woulnd't you like to stay here?"

Rose looked around, and said, "Torchwood 3, right?"

Jack nodded.

She shook her head. "Sorry but… that name doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy, so, if you don't mind…" She paused, and had a thought, "Could you try to get in touch with, Sarah Jane Smith?"

"Who?"

"She used to travel with… him."

Jack nodded slowly, and thought that the name sounded familiar for one reason or another. He'd have to follow her a bit, professionally speaking.

--

Sarah Jane gasped as she heard the familiar thrumb of the TARDIS materialise in her back garden.

She ran out to greet him. But nobody came out, so she tried the door. Evidentally, the TARDIS knew it was okay - in fact, she had the feeling that the TARDIS needed her inside, as the door opened without need of the key.

She saw Rose, crying silently, sat leaning back against the console.

She had the distinct impression that the TARDIS would be mimicking her, if she could resemble a human.

"Rose?"

She knew about the events at Canary Wharf, and had the very distinct impression that it was connected with this appearnace by Rose, not a day afterwards.

"Where's the Doctor?" She asked, and regretted it at the _wail_ that she heard from both Rose and the TARDIS.

She paled at the implications.

And she readily offered what she thought Rose both needed and came to her home for. She just didn't know how long it would be before she'd need get her couch and cupboard back.

--

Rose was getting more and more withdrawn with each passing day, and Sarah Jane and Jack both were worried for her. As they lunched though, another matter was brought up.

"Harriet Jones gave me the Go Ahead." Jack told her.

Sarah Jane just raised her eyebrows. "For what?"

"To rebuild Torchwood into something _He_ would have liked."

She felt a small smile crawl onto her lips. "Didn't he abandon you in the year, 200,100? That's what Rose implied anyway."

Jack just shrugged and answered, "I don't know what went through his head, but I wasn't part of it. From what I've gotten out of her, He had just absorbed the Time Vortex, and needed to regenerate."

"But, didn't Rose absorb it first? She should be dead." Sarah Jane commented.

Jack shrugged, "Don't know how, Rose is rather tight-lipped on it, but I somehow get the feeling she both knows and doesn't know why she survived 5 minutes with it in her head when the Doctor barely survived 30 seconds."

They both sighed and sipped their cups of tea.

After a minute, Jack asked, "What's Rose been doing?"

"Reading a lot."

"Reading What?"

"Books from the TARDIS Library I'd wager. Sometimes she borrows my computer, and I've asked Mr Smith to tell me what she's used it for but Mr Smith is rather uncharacteristically tight-lipped about whatever she's up to on it."

"Mr Smith would be?"

"My Computer." Sarah Jane told him. "Not alive, so no thoughts of trying to flirt with him, Captain. I'd heard of your reputation before I even heard that you had travelled with the Doctor."

Jack just rolled his eyes. "I was only going to say hello."

--

Jack pulled Rose along.

"Let me go Jack!" She said as she struggled.

"I will, if you agree to come with me!"

"Christ, Jack! I've got things to do!"

"Which can be done _After_ you've come with me!"

Rose harumphed, and after a minute of no longer struggling, asked, "Where are we going anyway?"

Jack just shrugged, and put her in the passenger seat of his Land Rover.

"Nice ride." She began, and then noticed something. "You kitting it out with Alien Tech?"

Jack smiled. "Little project for Torchwood. They bought it for me afterall."

"So. _Where are we going_?"

Jack smiled and told her, "Lunch."

"You could have just said so." Rose told him, "I'm hungry."

Jack chuckled, but added, "Not that kind of lunch."

She looked at him curiously. "What kind of lunch then? If I'm going to be a 3 course meal _again_, then I'm packing and going to the far corners of the universe."

"One Time! I didn't know they were cannibals!" Jack protested as he pulled out onto the M1.

"Again, where are we going?"

"Little place near Big Ben, got a reservation booked for 7."

"Jack, it's 6 30."

Jack just smiled and floored it. Rose' eyes widened when she realised Jack was calmly driving them through busy traffic at over 100mph.

"Jack. This is a Lan-I take it this has an Alien tech engine?"

"Of course." Jack answered.

Rose swallowed as Jack took the alien-powered Land Rover through a gap that gave only an inch either side.

"Jack, I don't think you should be speeding."

--

Rose laughed. Jack frowned.

"Told you not to speed." She told him.

Jack just harumphed, but smiled slightly to see her laughing, both Sarah Jane and he thought that she hadn't even so much smiled enough in the last 2 months since the battle.

"Now class, what did we learn today?" Rose mocked, and finished in a high-pitch nasal voice, meant to be a student, "'Alien Technology can drive accellerate car to 100 miles per hour, but not stop a car going at 100 miles per hour.'"

Jack just frowned.

In another imitation voice, Rose added, "'Fast Car does not make a nimble car.'"

Jack harumphed again.

"'Land Rover tyres can not travel faster than 100 miles per hour.'"

"Alright I get it. One big 'I Told You So'."

Rose just grinned at him impishly.

She was stopped from making another crack when someone called, "Rose!"

She stood up and hugged the excited-but-upset Prime Minister. "Harriet. How are you?"

"Fine, I should be asking you that. Jack told me about… are you okay?"

Rose shrugged, "Fine. No thanks to this lump."

"What happened?" She asked, noticing the scrapes on her and evidence of scraped on Jack.

Rose grinned at Jack. "He was speeding, and his tyres burst. All that Alien technology, and his tyres burst."

Harriet laughed, and felt better for seeing Rose alive, well (relatively speaking) and laughing at something.

Then she had to ask, "So, what are you going to do now? I learned last week that your Mum's flat was sold."

Jack stared at Rose, who avoided their eyes. In answer, she replied, "I'm gonna travel. There's so much to see…"

"Of the Stars." Harriet finished.

Jack had to say, "Rose, Traveling between land locations is one thing, -"

"Captain." Harriet interrupted with a look.

He looked down at the table, and mumbled, "Sorry Ma'am."

Harriet just held Rose' gaze for a few seconds, before she said, "If there is anything I can do to help before you leave, just ask."

Rose nodded slightly, and smiled faintly. "Thank you. I, ah… I might have a list - nothing big really."

Harriet just raised an eyebrow.

"It's not much, really, biggest thing is probably the watch."

Harriet had to ask, "Watch?"

"So I can keep track of my own timeline."

Harriet raised her other eyebrow at that. "You're going to travel through time as well?"

Rose nodded. "The TARDIS is getting a little, antsy. She's never been in one 'time' for as long as she has these last 2 months."

A beeping interrupted their conversation, and Jack mouthed 'Sorry' as he answered his phone, and put his headset on.

"Harkness." A slight pause. "Hey Suzie, what- wait slow down, what's going on? What glove, I don't know about- _really?_ Just hold on a second." Jack looked at them, "Sorry, I got to go, my team seems to have gotten itself into a pickle with one of the artefacts we found recently." Jack got up and left, and Rose heard him explain what he was doing to a quite obviously curious 2IC. "I was just lunching with the Prime Minister and a friend-"

Rose looked back at Harriet, and just raised her eyebrow.

Harriet lowered hers, and pointed out, "You do know, that if like him, you attract Capital T-Trouble, in the past, you'll be noticed? And your name doesn't come up in anything historical record wise."

"Not even Torchwoods' creation?" Rose asked.

Harriet shook her head, "No, that was _him_ and a companion he had, called 'The Wolf'."

Rose smiled slightly, and said, "Maybe that's what I should call myself then, Dame Wolf of TARDIS."

Harriet raised her eyebrows again, and asked, "That was _you_?"

Rose nodded, and answered, "I was Dame Rose Tyler of the Powell Estate."

Harriet smiled again and commented, "So you're going to do what he did - take a pseudonym, and if anyone asks, 'What Wolf?' you just answer,"

"The Wolf. Just, the Wolf." Rose finished with a fainter smile. Her smile faded as she added, "My name is on the list of the dead anyway, along side _his_. When he gave the plan to send the Daleks and Cybermen back into the void and I realised my Mum was going to be trapped, I made him know what I had decided ages ago. I won't ever stop travelling."

"Rose Tyler died the moment he fell." Harriet spoke softly.

Rose - no, _the Wolf_ - answered, "There is little left for me here. I might drop by on occasion, say hello to Jack and Sarah Jane, but ever since I stepped foot in her, the TARDIS was my home. She's a part of me and I'm a part of her."

Harriet nodded. "So this Watch, why do you think I'd be able to help you with it."

--

She smiled as she pulled out an outfit from the TARDIS' wardrobe room, and put it on. Light green long-sleeved shirt, suit-like jeans went on next, charcoal in look but silk in texture and feel. She wasn't sure if she wanted to wear the pink V-neck jumper, but she tried it on and found she liked it. It was thin enough that it wouldn't make her too hot. A red jacket was next, which had a logo on the back of a big wolf with glowing yellow eyes - she was rather glad that she had known someone who could make the patch, also it had the normal time-travellers mod cons such as larger-on-the-inside pockets. Then the brownish knee-length coat was on last. This one had pockets sized right to reach in and pull out large books. She already knew which ones were going to go in there.

And boots, fashionable but also pretty good for running in.

When she left the TARDIS, and stepped into Sarah Janes' living room, she held back a smile at Sarah Jane's jaw-dropped expression. Since the cupboard inwhich the TARDIS was parked was attached to the living room, she could see her as she leant against the side of the doorframe. She smiled a little when Sarah Jane said, "Stay there, I'll go get my camera."

When Sarah Jane returned, she pulled out the Sonic Screwdriver she had found so long ago, the one she thought had been _his_ but found he had a second one of. She lifted it up and posed with it.

Then Sarah Jane made a comment that made her almost giggle. "Jack's going to _die_ when he sees this picture!"

After a second, she said, "I'm just going to go park the TARDIS out front. Think you might need to get to some of the stuff in here sooner or later."

Sarah Jane gave her a look that said, 'Don't think you're fooling me,' but just nodded and watched as the TARDIS dematerialised. She smiled though when she saw that the TARDIS had reappeared as she had said.

--

The next day, the Wolf stepped through the doors into the TARDIS, and was about to close them behind her when she felt eyes on her back.

She stopped, turned her head slightly, and saw Sarah Jane out of the corner of her eyes.

"So this is goodbye, then?" Sarah Jane asked.

She didn't answer for a minute, but when she did, she answered with, "No, I'll be by someday. I don't know when or where…" She stopped, as she got an idea.

She went back to them, and asked Sarah Jane for her mobile.

She took the phone, and opened it up. With her Sonic Screwdriver and an item she pulled out of her red jacket, she fiddled for a few minutes, before handing it back. "There, Now you can call me, no matter when in time I am. It's time-synchronised-locked if you will, if you ring me in 5 minutes, it doesn't matter if I'm in the 12th Century in 5 minutes for me - it'll still ring for me, in 5 minutes."

"I got you." Sarah Jane answered, and pulled her into a hug. When she let go, she started, "Rose,"

"No." She cut in, "I… it's Wolf now. Remember?"

Sarah Jane just reitterated with emphasis, "_Rose_, if your phone rings, you come running, right?"

She smiled and nodded, and hugged her again. She then stepped away. "Rings, Run. got it." She repeated shortly, and stepped back into the TARDIS.

"See you again, Rose."

"You too, stay safe."

"You too."

The Wolf closed the doors, and stepped up the ramp to the console.

"Alright, TARDIS. When and Where?"

The console beeped, and Rose stepped around to the monitor.

"Supernova? What for? What-… oh." She finished with a small voice.

She gulped, and nodded. " it is."

--

_"Planet Gallifrey is where I was born. For the first 900 years of my life, I drifted from cataclysm to apocalypse caused by my many numerous enemies, alone. I had friends, but they couldn't really understand what it was like to see the people you loved, romantically or platonically, wither and die while you go on, never aging the way humans do. In the end, if they weren't killed, they left me._

_"And then, I met this woman, a human, called Rose Tyler. a woman who could hold the Time Vortex in her head, and came to save me from the Dalek Emporer and his fleet. She showed me just how wonderful it could all be, the travelling. I showed her the whole of Time and Space. I hoped it would never end - Me and Her, the Universe at __**our**__ fingertips._

_"I once asked her, 'How long are you going to stay with me?' and she answered, 'Forever'. She meant it. I could feel it in my soul. But then came the Army of Ghosts, then came Torchwood and the War, and that's when it all ended._

_"This is the story of Torchwood, the last adventure I, the Doctor - Last of the Time Lords, would ever go on._

_"This is the story of how I died."_

--

Mickey and Jake shared looks, but didn't say anything to _him_. Instead, they just watched as he looked out over the ocean.

They jumped when a figure appeared though, a see-through figure.

"Hey." It started, causing the Doctor to jump, literally.

"Rose." He began.

"Doctor." She smiled faintly at him.

"You look like a ghost." He said, and chided himself, he sounded lame.

"Hold on then." Rose replied, and pulled her Sonic Screwdriver out, and used it on something to her side.

He smiled when he saw her image fade in, no longer transparant and ghostly. He looked her over, and asked, "What's with the Librarian look?"

Rose chuckled lightly, but he didn't detect the humour that was normally in it. "Oh, Just thought I could do with a new look."

"Where are you?" He asked. "How…?"

"There's one tiny gap left in between the universes. It's going to close in a few minutes or so."

He nodded, accepting that, but something occured to him, "Where are you getting the power for that? It takes, phenomenal amounts."

Rose smile dimmed a bit, and she paused before she answered, "In orbit of a Supernova."

"Burning up a Sun just to say goodbye?" The Doctor asked lightly, and she nodded.

"You're… Dead." She began, but stopped and closed her eyes, and commented, "That didn't come out right. Officially, I mean. As far as what's left of Torchwood is concerned, you're a hero."

"Really?" He asked, but his normal curiosity was not present.

"Yeah. Jack told me that when he rebuilds it, he'll make it into something you'd be proud of."

"Jack?"

Rose grinned, and this time her eyes lit up with mirth. "He used his vortex manipulator to follow us back to 21st century earth, but missed, came out 2 centuries in the past."

He sighed, and nodded, accepting.

"Aint you gonna ask-"

"I felt it the moment you brought him back to life, Rose." He told her with a shrug.

"Oh. Wait. So you did abandon him?"

"Well, no. But he was going to be busy and I didn't want to be stuck on that station while regenerating." He explained half-heartedly.

They were quiet for a moment, before she said, "I wish I could come through properly, but, well…"

"The whole thing would fracture." They both said simultaneously.

"Where are you? Where did the gap come out?" She asked.

She watched him as he replied, and listening to those words and seeing his eyes, she noticed that the humour that would have otherwise been in his eyes at those words, were not present.

"In Norway, little place called Dalig Ulv Stranden."

"Dalek?"

"Dal_ig_" He corrected, "Translates as Bad Wolf Bay."

Rose looked down and smiled slightly.

"So you met up with Jack then?"

Rose nodded slightly, and added, "Stayed with Sarah Jane for a bit." She looked up and at the Land Rover, and waved at Mickey and Jake. "See you're hanging around with the Terrible Two then."

"There's six of us now. Me, Mickey, Jake, Jackie, Pete… and the baby."

Rose joked, "You're not…?"

"Oh, no no no nonono. Don't start those jokes again! I was only joking when I told you-"

"Oh shut up." Rose interrupted, smiling. "Mum?"

"Yeah. She's about 3 months along."

Rose frowned. "It's only been 2 months."

"Actually, 4 for me here. This universe is a bit ahead of ours. Faster." He explained.

Rose nodded, and asked, "What are you doing then? For a living, I mean."

"I'm working in a shop of all places." He joked.

"Oh shut up." She replied with a tight grin.

"Working with this world's version of U.N.I.T." He answered.

Rose joked, "The Doctor, Time Lord, Defender of the Earth."

"Always." He finished for her. "And you?"

Rose shuffled slightly. "I'm not sure. I've got the TARDIS, stick around Earth for a bit while I learn…"

"You can't go to Alien worlds though. I'm-"

Rose shrugged. "Actually, I think the TARDIS made me part of the translation circuit, I can still read some but not all of those books in the Library. Why didn't you tell me that I could read Gallifreyan?"

He shuffled his feet, shrugged, but didn't answer.

"Well?"

"I don't know how you could. I-"

Rose held a hand up, as she looked to the side. "We've got about 2 minutes left."

"You sure you want to travel? I mean…"

"I know. Yes, I'm sure. I-" She stopped, and took a deep breath. "Officially, I'm dead. They presumed I disappeared with you and Mum. Jack's helped, not telling them. I-" she stopped, as tears had begun to make themselves visible.

"I miss you." She got out after a few seconds.

"I miss you too." He told her, and moved to hug her but she held up a hand.

"Just a projection, remember? No touch."

Her heart broke to see his crestfallen look.

About a minute was left, as far as she knew, when he ground out, "I suppose, if it's the last chance I have to say it. Rose Tyler, I love you."

Rose was both elated and heart broken all over a gain. "Doctor…" She stopped, and then whispered his real name to him, before she continued, "I-" She faded away.

--

The last piece of Rose Tyler died then, unable to tell him how she felt.

And the last piece of the Doctor went with her, unable to do that which described who he was, unable to be with the person who defined him.

--


	7. The Wolf Teaser, I'm the Wolf

**Authors Note:** You really didn't think I'd leave it there? Anyway, This is, pretty much the first 23 mins of 'The Runaway Bride' - Posting it as a teaser on the end of this, because I want the whole thing to be one chapter, and I will post it on Christmas Day - it being a 'Christmas Special'. ;) . It's unedited, so the proper one should be worth a read when it goes up for the expanded bits (I dislike large amounts of just speech.) And if any of you didn't catch it, the final scene in this teaser is meant to be The Wolf's version of Torchwood episode 'Everything Changes'. Wondering if any of you have ideas for Rose' journeying alone. (I'm adapting it a little so that from here on, the christmasses are sort of synchronised with Rose' personal timeline, so they're roughly a year apart. a bit less between the Sycorax and this christmas special but yeah. Anyway, do I look bovvad? hehe.

And yes I know that's 2 chapters on-the-trot that I posted AFTER marking the story as Complete. Meh. Plans change. And would reviewers please, when they do at least have an account, log in when giving reviews so I can reply? yes evita, I'm looking at you.

**Authors Note 2: 21st december, edited previous chapter, got a detail wrong (Luke's presence, see that chapters' note)**

**

* * *

Chapter 1**

**Christmas Special, "I'm the Wolf."**

_**The Runaway Bride**_

She was half-way through those important words when she stopped, the projected image of the beach fading from her mind.

She was frozen in place. She didn't care that her shirt was getting wet from all the tears, that the corner of her eyes were starting to hurt from having wept so much.

That her heart felt so still, a deep burning cold feeling had overtaken her chest.

That the TARDIS was trying to talk to her, words she couldn't hear. Wouldn't hear.

She could have been frozen in place for 5 seconds or 5 hours. She didn't know and didn't care.

When she moved, it was more of a collapsing against the side of the console, gripping it tightly as sound added its voice.

She didn't notice the golden glow from near the doors.

She didn't notice that she was no longer alone.

Nor that her present company was in a wedding dress.

Nor that as she curled her legs up to her chest, arms wrapping around them, that her present company in a wedding dress had moved up to her without a word and started stroking her back.

Until, of course, the TARDIS gave her a big mental prod.

She looked up at the person, and confusedly, asked, "Who are you? How'dyou get here?"

--

_The TARDIS, travelling through time, flies into the distance of the blue tunnel. It reappears, only for the tunnel to stop and reverse, suddenly turning the tunnel red with hints of green._

_Overlaid, the two names fly up and past the camera,_

_**Billie Piper**_

_**Cathrine Tate**_

_Followed by a spining eye-shaped plaque with the words,_

_**What Wolf**_

_Then words fade in._

_**THE RUNAWAY BRIDE  
By Russell T Davies  
Adapted by Alex F Mcpherson**_

--

Rose gulped as she stood up, and after a moment, it had been like a light switch had been flicked, as she suddenly looked quite different, yet the same. Gone was the sad teared-up eyes, slouched Heart-Broken Rose Tyler, and in her place was the Wolf, standing up straight, curiousity on her expression, as her hand idly wiped the tears away as if she had just gotten a bit of muck on her face.

She looked at the door, then back at the woman, and asked, "What's your name?"

"Donna. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She said, and inwardly cringed when her voice waivered slightly. To distract herself, she pulled out a tool belt and asked, "How did you get here, Donna?"

Donna frowned, but held back her first impulse to claim that she had been kidnapped. When she, well, appeared in this strange room, she had almost shouted at Rose. But she had caught the distraught cries of someone who had just lost someone.

"I dunno."

The Wolf took in her appearance, and asked, "Were you… getting married or something?"

Donna rolled her eyes, but nodded. "Where am I?"

"You're inside the TARDIS."

"What?"

"Inside the TARDIS." She repeated, as she went to the controls, and started doing things with them.

"What?"

"The TARDIS." She added with extra emphasis.

"That's not even a word!" Donna exclaimed.

"Sorry, it's short for, 'Time And Relative Dimension In Space' but introducing it with that is a bit of a mouthful." The Wolf gave her a grin, one that didn't light up her eyes though.

"So. T, A, R, D, I, S. Tardis?"

The Wolf nodded.

"What's that then?"

"It's…" The Wolf stopped when she noticed Donna going for the doors. She ran over, but she was a little late.

She stood beside her though, gazing out of the open doors at the remains of the supernova.

"We're… in space." The Wolf began. "That's… That's a supernova. And you're, in my space ship."

The Wolf paused to tell the TARDIS, _'Hope you don't mind, but introducing you as the living creature I live in would seem fairly, weird for a first timer.'_

_'No problem, Rose.'_

The Wolf held back a retort that she wasn't Rose anymore, instead she continued talking to Donna. "It's called the TARDIS."

"How am I breathing?" Donna asked after a moment, in her shocked stupor.

"The TARDIS is protecting us."

Donna was quiet for a moment, before she asked, "Who are you?"

The Wolf took a deep breath, and smiled as, for the first time, she answered that question with, "I'm the Wolf. So, Donna? Donna what?"

"Noble."

"Husband or fiancee?"

"Sorry?"

"I mean how far into the wedding were you before you… were brought here?"

"Oh. Fiancee."

"Human?"

Donna frowned, but answered. "Yeah. Why, is that optional?"

The Wolf took a moment to think of something _he_ would say, and somewhat joking answered, "It is with me."

After a few more moments, Donna stated. "You're an Alien."

The Wolf grinned internally, and answered, "Nope."

"What?"

"Human, like you."

"Oh. So you're not an alien who looks much younger than you really are?"

"I'm 20, if that was your way of asking me."

Donna chuckled, but commented, "It's freezing with the doors open."

The Wolf closed them, then walked upto the console, and commented, "This should be impossible. I don't understand it. No human being can lock him or herself onto the TARDIS and especially transport themselves inside." The Wolf looked at Donna, and added, "Believe me, I tried." The Wolf got some tools and asked, "Mind if I scan you, Donna? Just incase there's something even you don't know about that could cause this?"

Donna shrugged, but nodded.

"Some sort of… hold on." The Wolf stopped, pulled out a book from inside her coat which caused Donna to raise eyebrows, and she flicked through before she mumbled, "Subatomic connections. Right. Maybe." After that, Donna didn't know what the hell the Wolf was saying.

After a minute of it thought, Donna slapped her out of impatience.

"What was that for?"

"You were mumbling technobabble."

"Oh. Right, sorry. Yeah."

"Know what caused me to pull a scotty?"

"Scotty?"

"Star trek? Don't tell me you-"

"Oh right sorry yeah that. No I don't."

Donna sighed, and asked, "Would it be too much for me to ask you to get me back to Earth?"

The Wolf shook her head, and asked, "Right then. Earth. Where were you getting married?"

"Saint Marys, Chiswick."

She smiled slightly, and started with the flight. Then she asked, "What day is it on earth? For you I mean?"

"Christmas eve."

The Wolf sighed. She wasn't sure if she could pull of the slight temporal shift along with the space one.

"Hold on tight then, Donna."

Donna did, and wondered why for a moment.

When they landed, she commented, "That wasn't so bad."

The Wolf shrugged. "Should have seen me when I took the TARDIS to the Supernova. Thank god for space bruise cover-up."

Donna smiled slightly, and asked, "Want to come to the wedding?"

The Wolf smiled, and for a moment, Donna thought she looked like a different person, like someone was inside trying to get out. But just for a moment. "Why not." The Wolf commented, and followed her out.

Then frowned when she saw where she was. "Damn."

"I said, Saint Mary's. What sort of Martian are you?"

The Wofl didn't pay attention, since someone else had it.

_'What's wrong?'_

_'Don't know.'_ Came the odd thought from the TARDIS. The Wolf thought she sounded a little ill, like she had a bug or something.

"Oi, Space Dumbo!"

"Yes yes wrong place I know." The Wolf told Donna shortly, with a little bit of anger. Donna backed off a bit, and the Wolf sighed. "Somethings' wrong with the TARDIS, like she's… I dunno, recalibrating or something."

"Or Something?"

The Wolf rolled her eyes and asked, "Would you mind finding out _exactly_ where we are while I go see whats wrong with her?"

Donna nodded, and mumbled, "I thought only men called their cars and ships 'her'."

The Wolf smiled slightly as she saw Donna walk off in a huff, before she went back in.

"Okay, What's wrong?" She asked aloud, as she started going through the controls and other things.

When Donna came back Five minutes later, the Wolf saw her expression and nodded, "Bigger on the Inside, I know. Hey Donna, you haven't had any contact with aliens? Or any strange things? Lights in the sky or… Who are you getting married to? Is he human? He's not a bit overweight with a zip on his forehead is he?"

The Wolf stopped when Donna slapped her again. "What was that for?"

"Babbling again."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

Donna looked her in the eye, and asked. "Your space ship is, bigger, on the inside."

She nodded.

"Your _space ship_, is _bigger_, on the _inside_."

She nodded again, bit smiled a little.

"You're mental."

She shrugged.

"Well, aren't you going to say something?"

She sighed and shrugged again.

Donna looked around and noticed something. When she picked it up, the Wolf was working at the console again, so hadn't seen her do that.

"Who's is this? looks like a mens coat."

The Wolf looked up, and after a moment, gazed dispassionatly at the coat. "That's my friends'."

Donna had caught the gaze. "Where is your friend? Was he out on a space walk or something?"

"No, he's gone."

"Gone?"

"Lost."

Donna stopped, and put 2 and 2 together. She didn't say anything on the matter, she simply put the Coat back over the rail where she found it.

"So."

The Wolf looked her in the eye, thought for a second, then said, "Come on, let's get you to your wedding. Can't take the TARDIS, she's recalibrating. Can't move her for a hour or so."

Donna nodded, and made for the door.

"One second though Donna."

Donna waited, and when the Wolf finally okayed it and they stepped out, the Wolf showed her her wallet. "If I asked you if you had money, what would you say?"

Donna chuckled, and said, "Well, for starters, I'd have shouted that, 'I'm in my wedding dress. It doesn't have pockets. Who has pockets? Have you ever seen a bride with Pockets?! When i went to my fitting at Shaze Alison, the one thing I forgot to say was 'Give Me POCKETS!'"

The Wolf was laughing, and nodded, "God, your a laugh. Glad I didn't ask if you had a mobile on you."

Donna chuckled, but stopped, and asked, "You?"

The Wolf shook her head. "Not yet, need a new one. Lost mine a month back and never really had the chance to get one."

Donna just gave her a look as they got up to a cash machine.

The Wolf opened her wallet and tried to find a credit card she knew would work, but no luck.

"Damn, and I don't carry money."

Donna looked at her and shrugged. "Pockets."

"Well, let's see… here we go." The Wolf pulled out her Sonic Screwdriver, and with short work, smiled as about a hundred quid came spewing out.

"Call it a Christmas and Wedding Present." She said as she handed the cash over. "Now, let's find a taxi."

--

The Wolf growled as she spotted the Taxi take off with Donna. Donna had gone ahead to get one, and had said she would tell the driver to wait for her, but obviously, the driver hadn't. And the Wolf believed Donna _had_ said to him to wait.

_'Oh well, onwards, upwards away, as they say.'_ She thought, and hightailed it back to the TARDIS.

_'Alright for flight?'_ She asked.

_'Of the 'up up and away' kind.'_ Came the sarcastic reply.

_'Oi, that was private!'_ She thought back, but without much care.

_'Yes and I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a shite brining Star.'_

The Wolf stopped to stare.

_'Er, I mean, Bright Shining Star?'_

The Wolf shook her head, but was smiling.

And She _thought_ she heard a whispered snicker of, _'Mission accomplished!'_

--

_'OW!'_ Was the repeated thought coming from the TARDIS.

_'Where the heck did you learn to Fly?'_ Came after she accidentally almost crushed a car.

She ignored it in favour of rigging a system to let her fly by wire - literally - while at the door of the TARDIS.

_'Ow-OWW Damnit Rose!'_ She TARDIS exclaimed after another explosion.

_'Sorry!'_ She apologised shortly, but with meaning.

She steadied the TARDIS so she could open the door. When she did she saw Donna, who mouthed, 'You. Have. Got. To. Be. Joking.'

"OPEN THE WINDOW!"

'What?'

"OPEN. THE. WINDOW!"

'I, Can't!'

She pulled her screwdriver out, and used it to unlock the window. Donna pushed it down, and shouted, "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE JOKING!"

"Open the Door!"

"I Can't. Robot Santa locked it!"

She barely had a thought to look at the driver, and sure enough, as her flash from months and months ago, the driver was a santa robot.

A quick use of the screwdriver and the door was unlocked. Donna opened it, and pointed out, "I Can't Jump That FAR! I'm IN MY WEDDING DRESS!"

"I KNOW, YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL, NOW COME ON!"

She took the TARDIS as close to the Taxi as she dared, but there was still just over a metre between them.

Just enough, as proved by Donna landing on the Wolf with an 'Oof'.

The Wolf ran than to the controls, and in between clasping her hurting hands from touching the burning controls, she touched the controls and took the TARDIS up away from the motorway.

A final explosion though caused her to gulp.

"Donna, hold on, we're gonna land and It wont be pretty!"

Donna gulped as well.

--

Donna shook her head, as she noticed the time. She glanced back at the TARDIS, where the door was half open and the Wolf was using an alien version of a fire extinguisher to fire jets of something like foam at the console from the safety of just outside the TARDIS.

After a minute, the Wolf approached her.

"For some reason, I don't think she does that much actual flying."

"Isn't 'she' a space ship?"

The Wolf nodded, but said, "She more, disappears in one place and reappears another. Like… Transporters. Better give her a couple of hours, I've got most of the damage that she can't repair herself."

"You talk like it's alive."

The Wolf nodded, but corrected, "She is. TARDIS's were grown, not built. She's alive, has her own personality, memories, the works. She communicates with me through a form of Telepathy. She can project thoughts to me. I can't do the same though, but she just hears what thoughts I have that I want her to hear."

Donna nodded, and asked, "How did you get her if you're human?"

She smiled faintly, and said, "For the first 19 years of my life, I was just your average girl in London, lived in a flat with my Mum, didn't do that well at school although that was just me being lazy, ended up just working in shops. Then one day, my job gets blown up by this man, this, Doctor. He could be sweet yet rude, arrogant and ignorant yet be modest and curious, all at the same time. He could piss you off yet endear himself to you in the space of seconds. It was him and the TARDIS, and I was just along for the ride."

The TARDIS interrupted, _'You weren't 'just along for the ride' Rose.'_

Her smile strengthened for a second, and she continued, "Once he took me back here to keep me safe." She grinned, and added, "I was having none of that. Did something others thought stupid. Went back and saved him. And the TARDIS has been my home ever since. She became part of me, and I like to think, I became part of her. We're connected and that just deepened over time until I could communicate as I said we do."

She turned and looked at the TARDIS with an odd look. Donna asked, "What happened to him? This, Doctor of yours?"

She looked at her, and instead of answering, asked, "Did we miss it? Your wedding?"

Donna understood that it was too painful for her to talk about, so let her change the subject. "Yeah."

"You can always book another date. Still got the honeymoon. Morocco, was it?"

"It's just a holiday now."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Still, it wasn't your fault."

The Wolf gave her a sad smile, and together, they looked out off the rooftop the TARDIS had been parked on, over the London skyline.

"Wish you had a time machine, then we could go back and make it right."

She heard the TARDIS laugh in her head, but said, _'I could send you back in a few hours but by then you'd probably do something to make that inadvisable.'_

_'Oi, what did he expect, taking me back twice to see my dad die?'_

_'Point.'_

"Wolf? You there?"

"Yeah, just thinking. Heard it's impossible to go back on someone's personal timeline." She silently added, _'Seen and know, are two different things.'_

Donna sat down on a bump in the roof, near the edge, and rubbed her arms. The Wolf ran back into the TARDIS for a moment, and came out with the Doctor's jacket. "Here. You must be freezing in that dress."

"Yeah." Donna pulled the jacket, and frowned, "God, this wouldn't fit a rat, how skinny was this Doctor of yours?"

The Wolf just smiled and joined her. In reply, she said, "Never noticed, really. Anyway, business for a minute. You never answered me before, anything possibly alien in your life?"

"No."

"Well, they were after you. Maybe- yeah. Donna? Don't take this the wrong way, not trying to rub it in or anything, but I need to put a biodamper on you - You're probably being tracked, how they found you so quickly after we landed. It'll hide you from their scanners." With that, she pulled a ring out of her pocket.

Donna smiled faintly, and held out her ring finger.

Repeating words that the TARDIS humorously fed her, she said, "With this wring, I thee Biodamp."

"For better or for worse." Donna added. "So come on, Captain Janeway, what's with the robo santas?"

"Well, they're scavengers. The Santa stuff is just a disguise. They're trying to blend in. Met some last christmas."

"Why, what happened then?" Donna asked, clueless.

The Wolf just stared at her for a second, then answered, "Space ship hovering over London, you didn't notice?"

"I had a bit of a hangover."

"Oh. I spent that christmas at my Mums, the Powell estate. Not far from your church. My friend even joined us, once he woke up. He- well. My mum's gone now too."

Donna put an arm round her and rubbed her back as Rose made a slight appearance in her expression. But within a few moments, it was gone.

"What I don't get, is how you got into the TARDIS. I mean, You didn't do it yourself, not intentionally at least. And she assured me that however you got in would be incredibly rare, like, I dunno, One chance in a trillion trillion trillion."

"Lucky me."

"Yeah. And why would those robot santas' be after you? What's your job?"

"I'm just a secretary."

She pulled out her screwdriver and started scanning Donna, and mumbled, "Not connected, not powerful, not important - I mean as far as I can see, doesn't make you any less of a person- Ow! What's that for?"

"Babbling again?"

The Wolf just whimpered slightly, before she continued her scan for a she stopped, she asked Donna, "What kind of secretary?"

"I work at H.C. Clements. Where I met Lance. I was temping. It was all a bit posh, really. I had spent a couple years at a double glazing firm, so I thought, I'd never fit in here. Then he made me a coffee. That just doesn't happen. _Nobody_ gets the secretaries a coffee, And Lance, he's the head of HR, He didn't need to bother with me. But he was nice, funny. And turns out he thought everyone else was really snotty too. That's how it started, me and him. One cup of coffee."

The Wolf looked out over the skyline, thinking about what Donna was saying, occasionally she would have to smother a laugh though, thinking, _'I bet it was Donna who did the begging, not Lance.'_

"I think of heard of them, sounds familiar. What does H.C. Clements do?"

"Security Systems, like entry codes, ID codes, that sort of thing. Ask me, I'd say its a posh name for locksmiths."

That made her wonder. "Keys."

"Anyway, enough of my C.V., it's time to face the consequences. Oh this is gonna be so shaming."

"Oh, if they try anything, I'm sure we can shout them up together."

Donna chuckled. "Yeah. You can do the explaining, Martian Girl."

The Wolf shook her head, and replied to that jibe, "Yeah, I'm not from Mars."

"Venus? How would that sound? Venuian Girl? Venian?" Donna commented as they set off for the building's fire escape.

"Venucian sounds more up my alley." The Wolf answered.

--

The Wolf stopped just outside the reception, and shared a glance with Donna.

"Now come on, Mount Donna, try and keep calm. Can't embarrass _them_ if you blow."

"Oh shut up, Venucian Girl." Donna replied and walked in.

She smiled faintly, and shook her head before following her in.

"YOU HAD, THE RECEPTION, WITHOUT ME?" was the first thing she heard.

The second thing was the same, but louder.

"YOU HAD THE RECEPTION, _WITHOUT ME?!_"

"Yeah, Donna. They heard."

An old woman stepped forward, and the Wolf got the distinct impression that she was Donna's mother. "Well what were we supposed to do? And what the hell happened? How did you do it?"

Suddenly, everyone began to talk, and both Donna and the Wolf were getting a bit overwhelmed and not a tiny bit pissed off at this.

And than, Donna whispered unnoticed to her, "Watch this."

And then, Donna put on a worthy and realistic performance of being rather upset.

Her wink made the Wolf smother a grin.

"You go girl." The Wolf whispered as Donna turned it all around and the party started back up.

She drifted over to the bar, and borrowed a guys' phone and began a search - conventiently the phone got wap connection with no cost at all, well, the sonic screwdriver may have had something to do with it - and after a few minutes, her slight smile from glancing over at the dancing Donna faded completely.

"Oh you have got to be joking." She mumbled.

The phone said,

_"H. C. Clements. Sole Prop: TORCHWOOD."_

She decided quickly, and gave Jack a ring. A prod from the TARDIS, 5 city blocks away, made her wonder for a moment, but she followed through.

"Captain Jack Harkness."

"Hey Jack, it's Rose."

"Rose? So that was you on the M4?"

"Yeah, had a bit of trouble with robot santas."

"Oh, I heard someone was in that taxi, and jumped into the TARDIS? You travelling with someone now?"

The thought made her pause, and that pause was telling to Jack. Not that he'd say anything. "No, just a friend I met recently. Anyway, She works at H.C. Clements - and I did a search. It's sole proprietor is Torchwood."

"Really? Not heard of it. Might have files on them though. You going to drop by?"

The Wolf shook her head, then caught herself. "No, Just tell me what you can. Jack, she appeared _inside_ the TARDIS. Unintentionally. Not 12 hours after I left in the TARDIS."

"It's only been 12 hours for you since you left Sarah Janes?"

"No, about 19 or so now."

"Well it's been 4 months for us."

She asked, "What have you got?"

As though his voice came from off to the side, she heard him asked, "Ianto, could you bring up the H.C. Clements, London files?"

And faintly, she heard this Ianto' guy reply, "I'm afraid we have no local copies, sir. All the computer files were wiped out by the Cybermen."

And even more faintly, she heard a woman, who sounded, vaguely, familiar, "Cybermen? You never did explain that to us Jack."

As she waited for this Ianto guy to get those files, she looked around and spotted a camera man filming the party, and she had an idea. Ianto was taking a while, because she got a copy of tape - the backup tape because the guy couldn't afford a camera with a more robust and less-likely-to-suddenly-delete-itself media.

She got a spare tape machine with a TV, and as she listened partly to Jack give her a H.C. Clements/Torchwood 101, she watched. And then she frowned. "Hold on Jack, mind stopping a second. Your phone recieve video?"

"Yes, why?"

"Maybe you could tell me what this is?" Then she switched to the video call, and played the video.

"Well, I've got a few guesses. Took a gander in the TARDIS Library. That looks like what one Galifreyan book described as Huon Particles."

The Wolf growled, and she heard the TARDIS chide her for doing so in her head quite loudly.

To both, she spoke and thought, "But Huon Particles, that's impossible. That's, Ancient. Huon energy doesn't exist anymore, not for billions of years. It's so old that-"

"That what?"

The Wolf growled louder. "That a bio-damper wont hide it."

The Wolf ran out to a window, and spotted the approaching robot santas.

"Jack, I might have to call you back. Those Robot Santa's I told you about? They've found my friend."

"Good luck!"

--

**3 months ago, Cardiff.**

Gwen Cooper started, "The thing is, I just don't understand-"

Jack cut in, "No, I'll tell you what I don't understand. You're gonna rattle on with that 'How can this be true' shtick. What's it gonna take for you people. If you want evidence of aliens, how about that great big spaceship hovering above London on Christmas day? What about the battle of Canary Wharf, a Cyberman in every home."

She smiled faintly as she replied, "My boyfriend said it's alike a sort of, terrorism. Like they put drugs in the water supplies. Psychotropic drugs, causing mass halucinations and stuff."

"Yeah well, your boyfriend's stupid." Jack snapped, although it was more at the not-present boyfriend than at Gwen.

"I know." She agreed.

That made him pause. "What?"

"Yeah, I have this friend, well not a friend really, she comes and goes and only met her proper the once… anyway before the battle of Canary Wharf, she said it was all true. Even met some of them, she said."

His interest piqued, he asked, "Who's this not-really friend of yours? How'd she meet aliens?"

Gwen shrugged and smiled, "You wouldn't believe me, even with all this alien stuff."

"Try me." He simply countered.

"She said, She travels with an Alien. Thought she was bonkers, until Canary Wharf."

Jacks' eyebrows rose, and he asked, "Her name wouldn't be Rose, Right?"

Gwen shook her head, and answered, "Never knew her real name. She used some sort of Gang-name, 'The Big Bad Wolf'."

Jack looked off in the distance. He was sure that had been Rose, but Rose calling herself 'The Big Bad Wolf' didn't sound like her, and the incident at the Torchwood estate - well, she made it sound like they just got some facts wrong.

And then he realised that the Ret-con pill he gave her was starting to take effect. And he began to feel the whispers of regret, he wanted to know more about this, 'Big Bad Wolf'.

--


End file.
